Give It All Away
2025 IBMA Momentum Vocalist Ali Vance shows why that award was more than appropriate with the first track on the new album, a fierce gospel song that whispers and growls called “Heal These Hands”. The recording opens with the sound of tuning in a distant gospel radio show and incorporates some bits of preaching, sounds that anyone who has ever listened to faraway stations late at night will recognize. It’s worth mentioning the production of this album. In most Bluegrass releases, the expectation is for a clear recording of the performance, but on this release, the band, along with producer Caleb Christopher Edwards, utilizes some beautiful touches on the sonic landscape, like the aforementioned radio samples, along with tasteful use of reverb. Bluegrass has, from its earliest days, been a musical genre that was transmitted by technology as much or more so than by live performance, most people having heard it on the radio or records, and so making good use of the studio is right in line with tradition.
The band of Vance with Bailey Warren, John Gray, Jonny Therrien, and Rico Wallenda has crafted a dynamic album that moves from songs like “Restless Heart” where they let the melody float gracefully over sparse accompaniment to the full-on, high-octane, all cylinders firing explosion of “Muleskinner Blues”. Downriver Collective is a band to keep an eye and ear on; they certainly deliver.
