Album: Band of Heathens, One Foot in the Ether, (Blue Rose)

There are so many parts to the Heathens that their sum is hard to compute – it's easier to make comparison to The Band and Little Feat and leave it at that.

Those parts are white, Southern, soulful, earthen and syncopacious, and they're put together huskily by a three-man creative front line. Confused? Don't be. The Heathens are good, if supra-derivative. You don't have to approve but it's hard not to admire the execution – even as you wish they'd been gifted with their own Lowell or Levon to sing a wholly original vision.