“Time hangs heavy on the vine/Let’s make wine,” Ryan Montbleau sings in the lulling, sensual verse that gives his group’s new album its title. Ryan Montbleau Band has been tending its own musical vineyard for a few years, on the patient cusp of a breakthrough. Their distinctive, long-fermenting blend of neo-folk, classic soul, and kick-out-the-jams Americana finally comes to full fruition in Heavy on the Vine. It’s an album that represents the product of — and further promise of — a very good year.
Tempted as Montbleau might be to look toward the big picture, not losing sight of the small one is why the band has maintained such a loyal and evangelistically inclined base. “I still go back to my original philosophy of just one person at a time,” he says. “I never even told people ‘Bring your friends to the show’ at the beginning, because it wasn’t about them bringing their friends, it was about them bringing themselves. I’m trying to focus on the one person, because if they come and like it, they are going to bring their friends. We’re still grass roots in that way.” No surprise, then, that those welltended roots have sprung up into such pregnant vines.
Since emerging as a favorite new live band out of Austin TX in the late 2000s, The Band of Heathens has toured relentlessly, building a devoted following and landing on some of the finest stages in music. Over three studio albums and hundreds of shows each year, they’ve evolved as a group and broadened their sound. Their most recent album Top Hat Crown & The Clapmaster’s Son spiked the already potent punch with a dash of jammy psychedelia. And the rich and righteous vocal harmonies that set TBoH apart from the beginning have just gotten better
The Band of Heathens continues to be distinguished by creative collaboration and their epic live shows, which have earned them a strong fan base of folks who appreciate improvisation and a good jam, but crave a great song. And while songwriting and vocal duties are chiefly handled by the guys at the front of the stage, they are decidedly a five man band, benefitting from the equal input of all. It is truly a band that needs to evolve to survive, and the fans have rewarded that growth at every turn.
Doors open at 6:30pm.
