Artist: Red Tail Ring

Album: The Heart’s Swift Foot

Tower rating: 4 out of 5

We’re at an interesting point in our history when the traditional begins to sound radical. This is one of the thoughts that floats to the surface while listening to the freshly released third full length album by Red Tail Ring entitled “The Heart’s Swift Foot.” It is a generous 12 song slice of Americana that shines like a bright copper penny in the electronic haze cast over modern music by Skrillex and his ilk.

Red Tail Ring consists of born and bred Michiganders Michael Beauchamp and Laurel Premo – two kids whose musical chops are technical as well as visceral. They have it in their bones. Beauchamp’s voice is reminiscent of Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, while Premo’s rings like a clear bell. Their voices play well together and create disarmingly deep harmonies that are often the only adornment on spare tracks like “A Clearing in the Wild.” Accents on “The Heart’s Swift Foot” come courtesy of banjoes and mandolins, absent any percussive elements that would give hard edges to the good clean old-time fun. “Body like a Bell” is one of the great original songs on the album (to R.T.R.’s credit, they wrote all but two of the tracks) that sounds like it could have been written back in the Sun Records days. And “Ladies’ Choice Waltz” is a painfully beautiful fiddle tune that conjures images of sagebrush and wide open skies.

It was Beuchamp and Premo’s intent to create a record that sounded as close to their live performances as possible, with simplicity and intuition playing central roles. And they succeed mightily. “The Heart’s Swift Foot” is an album that is remarkable for what it isn’t just as much as what it is. It isn’t flashy, it isn’t self-conscious and it isn’t likely to inspire a million spinoff YouTube videos. But for that reason it feels like a life-giving breath into the stale and stagnant lungs of radio approved ubiquity.