Kevn Kinney

A Good Country Mile

Jan. 05, 2012

midnight

As a teenage novice in Milwaukee, even before he lost the first i in his name, Kevn Kinney already had a gift for fashioning stories to simple but moving rock melodies. After leaving for Atlanta, he absorbed the Southern setting through his skin, moving back in time from the punk rock of his early Milwaukee ears to embrace a wider, more expressive palette of American music but without losing the youthful energy. On A Good Country Mile, Kinney collaborates with drummer Anton Fier and his band, the Golden Palominos, to produce a powerful, deeply felt, hard rocking album. “A Good Country Mile” and many other songs are inhabited by characters that could have come from the pages of Flannery O'Connor and are given dramatic life from guitar solos raging over a solid, four-square Southern rock beat. “Gotta Move On (Again)” recalls the late 1960s and early '70sas if Alvin Lee had fronted a raging garage band from one of the Nuggets compilations. Much of the album is grounded somber but rollicking blues-rock as Kinney and company kindle the controlled fire of their music.