We’ve been waiting on new tunes from Ian Noe since the day after he dropped his stellar debut album, Between The Country, back in 2019… and the day is finally here.
The Lee County, Kentucky native has officially dropped his sophomore album, River Fools & Mountain Saints, proving once again that Appalachia is still putting out some of the best artists in the business.
We got an early taste of the new record with lead singles like “Pine Grove (Madhouse),” and “Burning Down The Prairie,” and if you liked what you heard, you’re going to be more than satisfied with the entire project.
Top to bottom, it’s one of the best albums we’ve heard this year.
The album paints the perfect picture of what life was like growing up in his neck of the woods, as he admits that’s where the inspiration for the project came from:
“That landscape and that geography of growing up in Lee County, Kentucky. I’ve got so much material I can write about, of stories of all these people and just life in general, growing up there. You think about the river? It’s down here, it’s low.
And then you got the mountains up high. You can go all over the place with that type of landscape, and that’s how the writing starts.”
Drawing influences from Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, John Prine, and even M.I.A., you’d be hard pressed to find a wider range of influences than on River Fools & Mountain Saints.
Here’s a few standout tracks:
“Tom Barrett”
“Mountain Saint”
“POW Blues”
