It takes guts to name your band after the central character from
the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." However, despite some surface similarities to
the Band's faux-Southern Americana obsessions,
Virgil Cane has more in common with contemporaries like
Wilco and
Beachwood Sparks: country-rock is a jumping-off point, not the finish line. Singer-guitarist
Butch Boswell is clearly familiar not only with
the Band and
the Eagles, but also the rootsier side of the '80s Paisley Underground scene (
the Long Ryders,
Green on Red, late-era
Dream Syndicate), because even the twangiest songs here are overlaid with gently fuzzed guitars, and every few songs comes a neo-psych raveup like the last couple of minutes of the hazy "I Get Nothing" or the narcotic swoon of the
Yo La Tengo-like closer, "Your World." Laid-back without being somnambulant,
Stereo Fields is a low-key but thoroughly enjoyable stroll through the points at which country-rock and psychedelia coincide. ~ Stewart Mason