General consensus has it that the hardships of life on the road is far from the most compelling of subject matters for an album. Singer Songwriter MC Taylor – the North Carolina-based songwriter, singer and guitarist operating with a rotating cast of collaborators under the Hiss Golden Messenger guise – delivers compelling evidence to the contrary on Heart Like A Levee, by some distance HGM’s finest record so far.
M.C. Taylor’s sixth album as Hiss Golden Messenger is arguably his best. While 2013’s Haw served as the band’s initial breakthrough and 2014’s Lateness of Dancers brought about late night revelry (featuring Sylvan Esso Amelia Meath and Reggie Pace from No BS! Brass Band) on Letterman ,
Heart Like A Levee serves as a deeper incarnation of those predecessors. The album is steeped in the duality of leaving one of his greatest loves in life—his family—only to venture off into the world to embrace his other love—music—and exemplified in the gutting title track and “Cracked Windshield.” Yet, Heart Like A Levee reconciles with a singular musicality. Multi-instrumentalists and brothers Phil and Brad Cook have finally perfected the Hiss Golden Messenger sound by balancing the meandering guitar noodling and reverberating Wurlitzers worthy of a jam band breakdown with Taylor’s acoustic Americana foundation
The Fat Angel Sings 