Catchy, Deceptively Deep Americana Tunesmithing and a Lower East Side Show From Amy LaVere

Amy LaVere is a rarity, a bassist-frontwoman out on the Americana rock highway. She’s got a misty voice and writes moody, catchy songs with tinges of noir. She’s also Will Sexton’s wife. Her new album Painting Blue is streaming at Bandcamp. She’s playing the basement room at the Rockwood tonight, August 29 at 7 PM; cover is $10.

Sexton’s ominous baritone guitar twang lingers over Tim Regan’s spare, plaintve, jazz-tinged piano and brushy drums (that’s either George Sluppick, Shawn Zorn or longago Iggy Pop sideman Hunt Sales behind the kit) in the opening track, I Don’t Wanna Know. LaVere’s wounded, breathy vocals channel a distant, apocalyptic angst.

No Battle Hymn has brisk, arid 80s production:and a backbeat: if Neko Case had been making records back then, she might have sounded like this. Girlfriends – as in, “Don’t let your girlfriends tell you what you need” – is a catchy, Tex Mex-tinged admonition to a friend who might have actually found a good guy after all.

Veteran soul man Al Gamble’s organ percolates through the bouncy soul song You’re Not In Memphis, while Love I’ve Missed is more of a soul-pop tune. The album’s most haunting track is No Room For Baby, a starkly orchestrated portrait of dead-end blue-collar despair

Stick Horse is a lot more optimistic and quietly defiant, Rick Steff supplying a lilting accordion solo. Shipbuilding is a rare Elvis Costello cover that’s as good or even better than the original, a gentle and subtly scathing interpretation of the Falklands War-era ballad. The album’s title track makes a good segue, a Costello-ish take on early 60s pop beefed up with soaring strings:

Do you have the courage but not the fight
Smoke could be in the air
Flames around you everywhere
You wouldn’t care

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