“Long Mountain Road” is a memorable new track from Richmond, Virginia-based Hi Ho, Six Shooter!, pairing the group’s familiar Telecaster twang and lap steel with the added presence of a soaring string quartet. Its gradual arrangement builds around a solitary nighttime drive, moving from quiet contemplation toward a more hopeful resolution.
“Driving alone on a long mountain road, guided by moonlight and chasing old ghosts,” the vocals resonate, opening the track amidst steady acoustic strums and heartfelt layers of strings. “The stars are all shining so far overhead,” the enjoyable scene-setting continues, tracing nighttime contemplation through realistic introspections. Musings on how “each new beginning is another one’s end” builds thereafter into percussive involvement and twangy guitars, as the vocals ruminate into the “ashes to ashes” bridge, culminating in a crisply magnetic guitar twangs.
The string quartet is particularly resonant around midpoint, when they flow gracefully into a contemplative realm of lush acoustic strums and lonesome twangs. The strings then ease back in with spine-tingling delivery, moody and atmospheric in their gradual, intensified resurgence. Their layered, interacting pulses into the final minute invigorates into a final vocal enthrallment, witnessing the “stars in the sky” and letting out “I’m doing fine” — concluding the track with a sense of tranquility following the initial soul-searching. Enamoring in its string-laden folk and Americana blend, “Long Mountain Road” is an affecting success from Hi Ho, Six Shooter!.
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
