This is the second album by the son of Cheap Trick guitarist / songwriter Rick Nielsen from Rockford, Illinois .
While his dad is a straight ahead rocker, Miles has his own style and favours a rootsier folk sound.
The Rusting Hearts are the five piece band he's assembled to play his own brand of old school Cosmic Americana. These are Dan McMahon (guitar), Andy Scarpaci (bass), Micky Rosenquist (drums), Darren Garvey (percusssion) and Adam Plamann (horns & woodwinds).
The template to their sound is fairly easy to guess - electric Dylan, Gram Parsons, Tom Petty, Wilco, Ryan Adams etc - with a few added baroque touches like clarinet and Memphis horns.
Miles has the kind of voice that has been seasoned by whiskey and cigarettes. This is well suited to the short. direct songs about a bunch of characters you might meet in a Steinbeck novel or at closing time in a small town bar.
Marie for example is sad story of young women whose father is an alcoholic and whose muther has been murdered, struggling against the odds to make a life for herself.
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Some songs like The Grain, Cold War or Overrrated are punchy rock numbers; while others like Dear Kentucky (You're Killing Me) or All-Time Loser display a tongue in cheek humour.
The band have obviously gone out of their way to make this a varied, though still overly predictable, collection and they've deliberately retained a fairly ragged quality of a live show.
The downside to this is that in rattling briskly through twelve tracks in just 36 minutes also gives the whole album a slightly rushed quality.
Miles Nielsen's Website
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