June 29, 2009 Direct Current Music.com:
“This is a very personal album for me,” says Angela Easterling of her sophomore July 14 full-length BlackTop Road. “There is so much of my family in it. The themes are family and home and looking for a home. I think there is also a theme of where the past, present and future intersect and have an effect on each other. Sometimes it seems like the future is trying to destroy the past. But we can’t escape the past; it still haunts us.”
The “back to roots” attitude that Easterling brings to her fine new project transcends any casual lipservice. To dig deep into her own 18th century South Carolina roots, the singer/songwriter returned home and began to explore the themes, musical traditions and ancestral connections that have affected not just her own persona but generations of her own family tree. Working with producer Will Kimbrough (Todd Snider, Kate Campbell), Easterling expanded her sound, a blend of what Kimbrough describes as “rock-n-roll, country, bluegrass, literature and French pop.” Fiddles and banjos trade space with slide guitar and some charged honkytonk rhythms for an album that has one foot firmly planted in the traditional southern music, the other in the modern interpretations of Americana. It’s a balancing act that blossoms on track such as the wistful slow-dance ballad “Just Like Flying”, charming French twanger “Un Microphone” and jukebox raver title track. Recommended.”
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