Kolton Moore and the Clever Few - Dear Mom,

Like many new artists, I first heard of Kolton Moore several months ago when he was on the Texas Red Dirt Roads show with Justin Frazell. I was driving back from my 10-day "study abroad" trip across Texas. I was incredibly hungover and exhausted and sick of every song on my iPod. Thankfully, this voice stuck out through everything else coming through my speakers. It was something new. I ended up listening to the entire show just to figure out who the heck this guy was and it helped me get home in one piece. The next week I did the usual - listen on Spotify, buy the EP, rip songs off YouTube - thing until his latest album, Dear Mom, came out a couple weeks ago.

I usually go through spells where there's no new music so I'll listen to old playlists, then you have weeks like these past few where there's so much new music available to me that I feel overwhelmed. Normally that would be the case, but this album has completely stolen the show. My favorite kind of music is the kind I can listen to at work, driving, studying or on a run at the gym. It's hard to find music that I can listen to all day long, but this does it for me.

Although at times Moore's voice sounds like Sean McConnell (which is never a bad thing), he's still completely original. This first full-length record goes from haunting and lonely ("Hatch That Let the Devil In," "Ain't So Well,") to upbeat ("No Rest") to slow and bluesy ("God Man Blues"). There's not a bad track.

Check the band out on Reverbnation.
Buy the album here.

This is the song that originally got my attention:



I wish there was a better version of this, but it's one of my favorites from Dear Mom,.