Thanks to Peter Holmstedt for the translations of these reviews and thanks as well to the reviewers. I really appreciate your kind words.
Keith Miles Beyond The Headlights
As Keith Miles begins to sing in the very first track “Road I’m On” from his new album ‘Beyond The Headlights’, the first thing that comes to my mind is: what a great voice for country. The more the album is played, the more I can tell that Keith’s voice is also very suitable for blues. The album is varied and is moving smoothly between these two genres, but the country songs tend to be a little bit more powerful. ‘Beyond The Headlights’ contains some real top tracks, raising the album grade to the higher side of the three.
First out of these is “The South” where Miles is singing, nicely backed by a female background singer, about his love for the American south and that it will always hold a place in his heart. “Iola” is a country song about a common subject in country, the everyday problems. In this case it’s problems like a lack of money, the need to leave town for something better and withering crop. In the song “Maybe I Shoulda” Keith speaks of what he really should have done in order to keep his woman. He sings: “I could have walked a few steps in your shoes, lovin’ me must have been mighty hard”. To like Keith Miles, isn’t very hard at all…
Lars Svantesson / Nya Skivor
Keith Miles Beyond The Headlights
Three years ago, in 2006, Keith Miles debuted with the album ‘What It Was That They Became’ and now he’s here with the follow-up, ‘Beyond The Headlights’, an appealing and varied album with powerful songs. In Miles’ americana, pure country is joined with western swing, some folk music, jazz and a hint of soul. There’s a serious risk for it to be uneven, but as a matter of fact, this journey through Miles’ life – told as both real life and imagined – works very, very well.
The album presents a relaxed atmosphere with fine instrumental efforts, not least in violin and pedal steel, but also with the banjo and mandolin. The songs contain personality as well as nice, narrative lyrics, and all you have to do is close your eyes and let Keith Miles voice carry you away to the American south through the eleven songs of the album. Here we can find sweet southern romance and poetry in “Memories of You”, melodic honky tonk with floating, longing pedal steel in the highway song “Road I’m On”, a catchy celebration to his home in “The South” with a beautiful organ and choir, and happy jump jazz with an energetic tune and brass instruments in “7 Cent Cigar Blues”. In “Samson and Delilah” Miles has borrowed Bo Diddley’s often used jungle rhythms and the female choir from “The South” is back once again.
That’s how it goes on all through the album, like a prism where every song hold its own color and radiance. Entertainment of the highest quality!
Robert Ryttman / Countrywood
Bäst 2009 enligt Bengt O Tedeborg / Rootsy
Amy Allison
Sheffield Streets
Amy Allison is digging deep in all directions into the American treasure chest of songs, and returns with wonderful and diverse songs about futile, lost and perfected love. Everything performed with an incredibly characteristic voice and utterly sensitive musicians.
Keith Miles
Beyond The Headlights
Miles writes narrative lyrics in the tradition of great names like John Prine, Guy Clark and Jerry Jeff Walker. Musically he’s wide as the highway, as long as we’re on the subject americana. A couple of Western swing pieces, his love declaration to the South in “The South” and an intense version of “Samson And Delilah” are part of the highlights here.
Naomi Sommers
Gentle As The Sun
An album filled with catchy and vivid music from where the hillbilly and bluegrass tradition meets with blues, folk and a fragment of jazz. Mandolins, dobro and other acoustic string instruments dominate the open and welcoming sound picture.
Mednick, Steve & Eddie Seville
La Collaborazione Dei Due
Lyrics about nights in Louisiana, memories of the great days of the old, choices of life and the necessity of love in a world where castles are made out of sand and where the band only occasionally plays the song you want to hear, with music leaning on Zevon, REM and Springsteen. Mednick and Seville are hardly singing sweetly, and that fact surely helps to make their dynamic and sometimes a little funky roots rock interesting all the way through.