Peter Bruntnell: Normal For Bridgwater

Will the year's best alt-country album come from a South Londoner It's too early in the year to make any definitive statements, but Peter Bruntnell makes a strong bid with his third album and domestic debut, Normal For Bridgwater. A collection of straight-ahead country-rock that wears its Uncle Tupelo influence on its sleeve—it even brings in Son Volt's Dave Boquist on fiddle—Normal For Bridgwater may not stray too far from formula, but it's done right. Bruntnell's plaintive vocals align perfectly with the banjo and pedal steel on the ballads and temper the power chords on the more upbeat material. More importantly, Bruntnell knows how to convert a familiar sound into a great song: Bridgwater's best comes early in the form of "You Won't Find Me," a bit of propulsive melancholy that wouldn't even wear out its welcome if it received the repetitive airplay of a Vertical Horizon single. If no tracks reach that song's grandeur, plenty come close, particularly the sort-of title track "N.F.B.," "By The Time My Head Gets To Phoenix," and "Outlaw (May The Sun Always Shine)." He may have come by it by way of the Thames rather than the Mississippi, but Bruntnell's modern country sound is as unaffected as they come.