When Meredith Lane announced her move to Nashville none of us were surprised. Her musical explorations and individual voice make her a shoe in for writing jobs in the cradle of country music. What did surprise us was the demos she returned for her own album. Greyhound is a fully formed concept that sees Meredith leaning into her Americana, western, and roots music beginnings and expanding into rock and alt-genres. On the release of her first single Meredith immediately garnished critical praise from Global Texan Chronicles, If It’s Too Loud, and was invited to perform a SCENES session. This year she was a featured artist at our Treefort Music Festival Label Party, and she’s just completed her second Pacific Northwest tour.

Meredith hails from Enterprise, Oregon, and grew up in the first theater west of the mississippi to show a “moving picture”, the 100 year old OK Theater, a place many ASTRecords albums were recorded. Her father Darrel, who owns the theater, plays some guitar on the new album. Meredith comes from a musical family and has been writing, recording, and releasing her own music since she was a teenager. Since releasing "Winter Song" on the ASTRecords Holiday Rambler a while back, Meredith has set up shop in Nashville, spending every spare minute at Goshen Studio tracking Greyhound. She called upon constant live band members Zion Mark (bass), and Jake Bibb (drums), and label mate Cooper Trail (Desolation Horse) to fill out the sound.  

Lane has a pen as powerful as her voice in her newest album Greyhound. Written at 19, with a voice like 70s era Linda Rondstadt, her music is in line with retro country and even alternative folk. “Know You” makes one nostalgic for 90s era alternative, and just a few bars in Paul Niehaus’ (Calexico, Justin Townes Earle, Iron & Wine, Lambchop)  pedal steel begins to seep from it’s edges. Between these elements and Meredith’s voice the song becomes an irresistible bop around blind love’s beginnings -and eventual ends. Meredith keeps it buoyant with a catchy chorus and eventually the album’s second single becomes an empowering anthem about growth, making even the pedal steel sound happy. As an ode to lower resolution, pre-internet days she starts the positively punk “Bitter” in a tinny, distant warble. The song -about coming of age, and the things that change- is a great example of Meredith’s live presence, able to go from mournful lows to gleeful highs in a moment’s notice.

Before you realize it, you’ll be on a journey with Meredith, escaping dead ends, and headed for the open road. The album is about setting off on your own, then realizing maybe you always have been. She’s at her Nashville best on “Gas Station Baby” a heartbreaker about “motel ladies, comeback joans’, and mean diva queens that hearkens back to late 60s era road songs Rita Coolidge or Jessi Colter might have turned out for RCA. Pedal steel here provided by Brett Resnick (Kasey Musgraves, Sierra Ferrell). Keeping it moving, Greyhound hits a country-funk note on “Casting Shadows”, reaching into the deeper end of Meredith’s endless vocal register, and steadily building speed. The band takes the song to surprising highs while Meredith keeps it on the road with her steady voice.