There’s a crystalline beauty to the songs on this album — every one celebrates the pleasures of loving deeply, yet acknowledges the hard edges of living. “Belief,” with Joe Overton’s wall of steel and Joshua Vana’s shimmering leads, channels Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky,” and the galloping “Grass” would be right at home on the Outlaws’ eponymous first album. The Party Line — the “Band Family” of one of the songs — plays a tight groove here, but it’s Struthers’ lyrics that gaze, clear-eyed, at the joyous possibilities lying latent in this tired old world. It’s past time now for a major label to sign Struthers; there’s not a better-written roster of songs out there this year.
The Fat Angel Sings 