Railroad Earth - The Last of the Outlaws (2014)

Railroad Earth’s seventh album is their most evocative and ambitious set to date. At once melancholic and joyous, often deep, yet always accessible, the album captures the band as they are now; twelve years in, wiser and worn and pondering how this life affects those around them. Every song has a story and every story has its meaning. Last Of The Outlaws began its journey at a remote private studio in rural Western New Jersey. Band member John Skehan happened upon it while looking at a piano for sale and was immediately taken by the spacious studio built into a beautiful private home in the woods.

A few calls and visits later and Railroad Earth had become the first outside artist to set up camp and lock out the space for an extended period. With their gear in place, they hit record and began playing and exploring new sonic palettes. Songwriter Todd Sheaffer infused the process with a healthy dose of new songs that set the tone and direction for what followed. And what followed was an album filled with stories of birth, death, heartache, joy, sadness, redemption, loss of our heroes, and even a lesson or two from old ghosts straight from the hangman's noose.

A band of multi-instrumentalists, Railroad Earth pushed the boundaries on Last of the Outlaws, introducing string sections, horn sections, acoustic piano, electric guitars, penny whistle and more to their core sound, with every note played by the six band members. They even took their first foray into long-form music with "All That's Dead May Live Again / Face With A Hole," an ambitious twenty-one minute progressive-folk masterpiece with seven movements and lyrics that grapple with the human condition, making sense out of random acts of violence in society and the responsibility to find our way back to our hopeful nature.

Other standout tracks, like album opener "Chasin' a Rainbow," which looks back at the journey that brought them here, "Monkey," about dealing with personal demons, the rollicking and self-explanatory, "One More Night on the Road," and the lonesome title track, "The Last of the Outlaws," about holding on to a life that's no longer there, may help to mark this as Railroad Earth's most genuine studio effort yet.