Album Review: Keep It Moving by Branson Anderson

_{By Andy McFerren}

A fact that many people don’t know about me is that I was raised on country music and John Wayne movies. The only music my dad listened to was country and the Rocky III soundtrack. It’s a miracle that I turned out the way I did.

As I grew up, I discovered and fell in love with many, many other genres of music. But despite this, country (especially older country music – the kind that has a drawl or a twang accompanied by the haunted wail of a steel guitar) still has a special place in my heart. And as reason would have it, Branson Anderson’s latest EP, Keep It Moving, scratches the occasional itch I have for this flavor of music. 

One of the reasons I love country music is its capacity for storytelling. It’s able to paint a picture that other genres fail to clearly communicate. There’s something so pure about it. There’s something so deeply American in the way we romanticize the Wild West by painting it with idyllic strokes that erase our ugly past. And the reason so many have done that is because nostalgia for a time that never truly existed is one helluva drug. A drug in the form of Branson Anderson that I want to inject right into my veins. 

Borrowing from bluegrass and the blues (most evident on “Losers”), Branson gives it his all on these six tracks. Recorded in live takes with the help of Chase Ford, Branson sings these songs and you feel like you’re right there in the saloon with him. And if not the old west, you’re transported back in time to the beginnings of folk and Americana, where the likes of Bob Dylan were forged. You can feel the fingerpicking of his guitar in your chest, each pluck playing the strings of your soul. 

If you’re as lucky as I am, you’re brought back to dirt roads and old pickup trucks with the plodding beat of “Gila Monster.” As he croons with a twang that’s so effective that you don’t even care if it’s authentic (though I think it is), you get lost in memories of hot summers exploring the woods found in your friends’ backyard. 

And as tantalizing to my imagination and nostalgia as the first five tracks are, Branson ends the EP with my favorite song: the pensive and hopeful “I Won’t Let You Down.” 

Be sure to follow Branson Anderson on Instagram, and listen to “I Won’t Let You Down” below.