The Devil's In This Whiskey EP (2010).

Buy here: http://twocentrevival.bandcamp.com/album/the-devils-in-this-whiskey-june-2011

Rear View Mirror

There’s a lot going on under the hood of Matt Jones’ unlabored Americana songcraft and his baritone delivery. Adopted from Brazil and raised primarily in Houston, Texas by American parents, Jones’ perspective as a Latino-American is ever-present in his writing, as is the looming specter of Jones’ lifelong struggles with depression and anxiety. Throughout Demons, Jones explores both the nuances of his multicultural identity and his mental health issues, while stylistically maintaining a balance between haunted old-world source material and a contemporary sense of selfhood and style play. The end result is an organic, complex, and unpredictable sound all his own.   

The guiding light of Tom Waits hovers over Demons as it does over essentially all progressive roots music of the last 35 years. Jones, however, approaches his subjects with a gravity and formality more in line with the raw narrative finesse of Nick Cave than the carnivalesque surrealism of Waits. Magical realism and mystical imagery pervade these stories of outlaws and obsessions. Dramatic personae and unfiltered confession take turns at the microphone until finally they are indistinguishable. Demons conjures a timeless, insular world of dark folk myth without conceding to the stylized and the retro. Sonically, Jones takes influences ranging from Langhorne Slim and Shovels & Rope to Beirut & The Decemberists, wringing out their most affecting qualities and distilling them into a unique, powerful blend of expressive folk-rock.

Rear View Mirror

Two Cent Revival