Fronted by Aaron Parrett, The State Champions have just come across my desk with a poetically visceral new album, Independent Record.

By Graeme Smith

Opening track Canada is one that instantly transports us thanks to its atmospheric country instrumental, but what has you sticking around is Aaron’s striking, storytelling lyrics (“I would have cut in line at the gates of hell”). They tell of anarchic youth, tinged with nostalgia and regret, and a desire to escape it all. The story is beautifully emoted by his gritty lead vocals and there are some mesmerising instrumental interludes.

Mirror, Mirror brings with it a certain melancholy through its introspective rumination. When I Was a Mountain is wonderfully folksy, and rich with lively string plucking and bowing. I Care For You is a defiant, vivid vignette before Vandercook rounds off the first half of the album with a light and wistful highlight.

Stranger and a Rose sits at the heart of the album and gives us a delicate, Dylan-esque, acoustic moment with heartbreak in its lyrics. Thirst fills our cup with its biting insight. Never Was Golden revels in its visceral poetry while Sisyphus lingers with loneliness. Boy with the Lightning Bolts injects some jangly energy into proceedings before Dixieland Dew closes the album with some anthemic reminiscence.

There are few songwriter like Aaron Parrett, and The State Champions latest album has so many memorable lyrics that I look forward to revisiting time and again. All the while, the stories are rendered beautifully to life by the band.

Independent Record features the talents of John Denby on bass, harmonica and vocals, Jon Flynn on dobro, Ken Nelson on piano, Aaron’s wife Nann Parrett on harmonies and whistling, and Matt Strachan on production and engineering. It’s out now, available to buy as a digital album or on limited edition 12″ vinyl via Bandcamp. You can give it a listen below.