Honeyhoney - Billy Jack

Honeyhoney - Suzanne Santo and Ben Jaffe may call L.A. home, but the indie roots music, gritty alt-country fervor and Laurel Canyon folk/pop of their excellent sophomore album sound like they may be equally at home in the clubs of Nashville or Austin...70's California country/rock a la Buffalo Springfield and Gram Parsons gets dusted off for a hip reworking...Raymond Richards (Local Natives) produced // Release: Billy Jack (October 24, Lost Highway) // Sounds like: Retro-hued Americana with a modern, ballsy alt-pop irreverence...nothing shy or plaintive here as the mostly acoustic backdrop of fiddles, banjos and guitars are simply the stepping stone for Santo's remarkably ear-grabbing vocal dynamics...

Quote: "The album is made of a lot of stories, a lot of lives. We're very different, but those differences are what makes it. I've had a lot of different times in my personal life that kinda leveled me as a person. That's why this record is the way it is. It's made of guts: what's happening on the inside, the notion of us being really independent, being on our own. That's a big reality." - Suzanne Santo // What we like: Lead single "Turn That Finger Around" pretty much had us at the hello of the first 12 bars, even before a word had been sung or the track had really dug in...the track shimmies and shimmers with some revved up alt-country sturm and twang as Santos' vocals ride the steel strings with both insistence and soulfulness...the tight harmonies on display in the piano ballad "L.A. River"...the tear-in-your-beer country waltz "Angel of Death"...the stark, bluesy banjo lines of "Ohio"...

Honeyhoney - "Ohio" (from Billy Jack)

Honeyhoney - "Turn That Finger Around" (from Billy Jack)