After a 20-year hiatus, original lead singer and songwriter
David Nelson has put together a new version of
the New Riders of the Purple Sage. (New New Riders of the Purple Sage?) Longtime
NRPS pedal steel player
Buddy Cage joins
Nelson for this outing and takes the majority of the solos, adding plenty of feeling to the band's cosmic country meets
Grateful Dead sound. Longtime
Grateful Dead lyricist
Robert Hunter contributes words to seven of the album's 12 tracks, bringing his customary psychedelic sheen to the material.
Nelson's familiar high tenor sounds a little gruffer these days, but it's still a beautiful instrument and brings plenty of understated emotion to the music. He's always had a gift for crafting fine melodies and hooks that stick in your mind after a single listen, so it's no surprise that a bunch of these new tunes are as good as anything
NRPS have given to us in the past. "Fivio" is a triumphant love song that's a reinvention of the traditional Irish tune popularized by
the Clancy Brothers and features
Michael Falzarano's chiming guitar and sighing pedal steel by
Cage. "Suite at the Mission" is a cryptic meditation on life's vicissitudes full of dark humor; it's marked by more sparkling pedal steel from
Cage and a world-weary vocal from
Nelson. The title track is a bluesy shuffle crammed with mind-bending images that compares favorably to the
Dead classic "Truckin'." It's one of the album's strongest songs and
Nelson delivers it with a jaunty, insouciant air.