THE PRESS RELEASE: “The Remedy Club are a husband and wife Americana/Roots duo comprising KJ McEvoy & Aileen Mythen. McEvoy has been singled out for praise as a guitar player of great expressiveness and technical aplomb and Mythen for her stunning vocal performances. They released their album Lovers, Legends & Lost Causes in 2017 to critical acclaim in Ireland, the UK and further afield. True Hand True Heart is the first release and title track from The Remedy Club’s new album, produced by five-time Grammy-winning producer Ray Kennedy, who has worked with many award winning musicians including Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, and with whom they co-wrote one of the songs on the album. It is an upbeat, rootsy song with a Johnny Cash/June Carter feel that highlights the fragility of human life and the importance of moral progress and moving on and not in reverse.”
MY TWO CENTS: I dunno about you, but I generally prefer my roots music with some sand in the mix, some mud on the boots and some blood on the tracks. Clearly, The Remedy Club know where I’m coming from. Because it’s right up their alley. The Irish couple’s second album True Hand True Heart is a rough-hewn roots-rock throwback to the days before country music became an endless series of pickup truck ads and beer jingles. These 10 shots of 100-proof Americana feature guitar riffs that crunch and sizzle, chicken-pickin’ licks that twang and rumble, back-porch backbeats, dusky harmonies and potent, patently gorgeous vocals from Aileen Mythen. And they’re all employed in service of muscular, no-nonsense roots and country songs that have both feet firmly on the ground and one hand wrapped around the bottle. Bonus points for singer-guitarist KJ McEvoy’s what-are-you-looking-at? sneer on the cover. Bottom line: The Remedy Club have the cure for what ails you. And the musical curse that’s plaguing Nashville.
