The last long-player by Milwaukee’s Zach Pietrini Band, 2017’s Holding Onto Ghosts, centered its folk-rocking Americana sound around Pietrini’s experiences of being a husband and father. With that as a prior standard, the seven songs comprising Denver Sessions aren’t as overall joyful, but instead work as a song cycle starting in dark indifference and eventually reaching for affirmation and hope. Correspondingly, Pietrini and his mates work up some of their hardest-edged material toward the start of Denver Sessions and ease toward balladry that could invite the lifting of lighters (maybe smartphones nowadays) in the right concert setting. They’re a rootsy act in which their hometown can take pride until the rest of the world catches up. But here’s hoping ol’ Zach is in a happier place than he was during the start of these Sessions.
