The mark of quality is hard to describe but oh so easy to identify when you hear it. And so it was with Rod Picott and his album "Welding Burns". Americana is pretty much an anathema to any sort of originality these days with the easy path of sentimental reflection on days gone by often religiously followed with no poetry, no Kerouac musing and very little in the way of storytelling.
Once in a while however, someone throws away the lifejacket and sets out for a swim in shark infested waters. Rod Picott is such a man. Sure, he sounds conventional enough and his blue collar lyrical observations could easily be those of luminaries like Doug DeJoe and the Bloomlaters. Only, Mr Picott doesn't pull his punches and attacks the facts with the dry realism of a man who knows that the pen is mightier than the sword. He reflects on the wide scale outsourcing to foreign countries in "Rust Belt Fields", looks coldly at crime as a career option in "410" and even goes all sentimental about relationships in "Jealous Heart" and all without drawing on a rose tinted past.
The mark of quality. Townes Van Zandt had it. Rod Picott has it. He's a songwriter with something to say and that is something worth listening to.