Roomful of Smoke

VINYL FORMAT. Leslie Stevens may just be the sweetheart of the rodeo. Not your traditional rodeo, mind you: this one's a traveling road show, a displaced menagerie of vintage country rock, Laurel Canyon folk and haunted gypsy jazz. Roomful of Smoke, the new LP from Leslie and The Badgers, shuffles and swaggers to the march of a different drum. It's a glittering showcase for Leslie's pitch-perfect, honeyed croon - a lighter than air twang that channels Emmylou, Dolly and Neko Case in the same understated breath. With a sound that that transcends genre and time, Leslie and The Badgers wouldn't be out of place at the Grand Ole Opry or A Prairie Home Companion (or at renowned alternative LA venue Spaceland, for that matter). "It's Okay to Trip," sings Leslie, perhaps a subconscious nod to the round-the-world excursion of her record. This final track lands us back where we started: a meditation on human frailty and the need for redemption, a wink from a companion and a smile in the general direction of the cosmos.See you on the other side, friend.