Just what is it about the SUEDE & ‘LENE album that I love so much?
Let me count the ways ...
#1. It nailed me on first listen.
#2. The jumping off point is roots-infused rock, but the variety of styles within is so impressive.
#3. The primary vocalist’s talk-sing voice slays me; the cool swagger and phrasing of the words
makes me pay extra-close attention to what he's saying.
#4. It contains lyrics which so perfectly encapsulate the dread many of us feel about the future of our country.
#5. Clearly, the players are all insanely gifted.
#6. The piano/organ combo always gets me.
#7. I hear similarities to many things I love - from Dylan & The Band to Kurt Vile to Jonathan
Richman, Deer Tick, John Prine, and Steve Forbert.
#8. Their sense of humor shines through.
#9. It sounds every bit as fantastic on subsequent listens.
SUEDE & ‘LENE’s debut is a modern stew, concocted from the wisdom of experience, well-oiled skill, and just the right blend of confidence and humility. It’s a work that’s important, for what it says and how it says it. Helmed by Angelo Petraglia and Eulene Sherman, a pair of transplanted New Yorkers living in Nashville. Angelo writes the words. Angelo and Eulene write the music. Angelo sings lead, primarily playing rhythm guitar and keyboards. Eulene handles backing vocals and bass guitar.
Angelo Petraglia has been at this music thing for quite a while. Born in Manhattan and raised in Pelham NY, he was first inspired to pick up a guitar when he was in 3rd grade, after seeing Ricky Nelson perform on TV. After art-school in New Hampshire, Angelo cut his teeth in the Boston music scene, forming the band Face To Face and signing to Epic Records, with Jimmy Iovine and Arthur Baker producing. The single from the album, “10-9-8”, dented the Top 40. After running the gamut of the major label rock world, Angelo made a decision to change tack and move to Nashville, thinking “Maybe I could pay the rent writing for country artists.” And it worked! “Here I’d thought it was over for me but all the songwriters down there were the gray hairs, and they were still around, doing it.”
Angelo found a community in Nashville, but a broader one than he anticipated. In addition to accessibility to veterans like Don Everly and Harlan Howard, he encountered up and comers like Kim Richey, who he not only wrote with, but who he earned his first producer credit with. Angelo quickly became a sought-after songwriter, working with the likes of Carrie Underwood, Patty Griffin, Taylor Swift, and Trisha Yearwood, the latter bringing him a Grammy nomination. He was, as they say, off to the races. A chance encounter in the late 90s with two teenage brothers, Nathan and Caleb Followill, permanently altered Angelo’s music career. While the three were writing country songs together, influences from Angelo’s rock ‘n’ roll background began to seep in, and it all “kinda morphed into the Kings of Leon in the upper bedroom of my house.” Angelo would go on to produce, and coproduce, the band’s first seven albums. In 2010 he won two Grammys as producer of their song “Use Somebody” - Record of the Year and Best Rock Song. Later work with the Black Keys, Peter Wolf and Lissie would broaden his palette even further.
Eulene Sherman is no stranger to the studio or the stage. Twin talents in acting, and writing and performing music, kept her active in both fields. She bounced back and forth between classical vocal training, academic years attending a New York City actor’s conservatory, and doing her own music in clubs there, and in Nashville. Eulene and Angelo met at a Monday Community Night in one of the capital city’s longtime preeminent music venues, 12th & Porter, and found they had a musical kinship. But feeling the pull of her hometown, Eulene returned to Manhattan for a spell. A year or so later, when Angelo offered to help her make a record and invited her back to Nashville, Eulene accepted. Ironically, while making her debut, Bicycle, a roots-rock/singer-songwriter affair, she found she needed to unlearn some of the highbrow techniques she’d acquired back in NYC. With Angelo’s help, other projects followed, including indie rock group the Jane Shermans; The Ragman Sun Revue, a glorious ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen meets Sly and the Family Stone-style’ big band; and a pivot to do an electro-pop project simply called Eulene. It was not their original intention to be in a band together, but the more they collaborated, the more they clicked. Sunday morning jams with coffee in hand were so fruitful, it became obvious to Eulene and Angelo that their chemistry was something out of the ordinary - they were a band. And so, SUEDE & ‘LENE was born.
Angelo and Eulene made an album the way Dylan did it in 1966: using the best musicians Nashville had to offer, while not striving for a strictly country result. The sessions quickly gelled with players of an extraordinarily high caliber; like Sam Bush - former New Grass Revival mainstay and frequent sideman with Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett - on mandolin and violin; and Dan Dugmore (Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor) on pedal steel. As Angelo explains, “It was coming fast, it was really flowing. We had about 55 songs. We ended up finishing, mixing and mastering 20 of them.”
At times, Eulene and Angelo both take on actorly qualities when they sing - they get ‘in character.’ For instance in the playful, hayseed accent they adopt on “God Sends The Devil,” or the Stooges-style rocker, “I Was In A Cult,” where Eulene puts on her best ‘Shangrilas.’ The latter is actually a true story. While still in high school Angelo was briefly caught up in a bona fide cult. Luckily he always kept one foot out of it and can find the humor in it now. He sings: “I was freaking out my mother/And I was losing all my friends/ I was in a cult!” while Eulene’s layered, girl-group-style backing vocals shout incredulously: “He was in a cult!”
It must be said that Eulene’s polished and masterful backing vocal arrangements are key to the album’s success - at times sassy, at others reminiscent of the cultivated choral treatments in the early work of Leonard Cohen. They lift the songs up and deftly frame Angelo’s gruff lead singing, which Eulene is quick to point out “is part of his greatness.”
Angelo’s facility with words is prominently on display in the album, many of them constitute a concise and welcome social commentary. Take “Livin In The Country” for instance - an anthem everybody needs to hear. It was written on the run. “We have an airstream and took off during COVID,” says Eulene. “We were boondocking in Montana and Wyoming.” Angelo adds, “That song came out of the air, & I kinda grabbed it and went with it.” The lyrics hit hard: “Every star, every stripe, bein’ used to wipe up the blood on the floor/You ain’t livin in the country you fightin for!” Then later: “I’m tryin to find that channel/You know the one where the good guys always win?/You better take a look around you/You ain’t livin in the country you grew up in!”
As you listen, you’ll find more than one song that references a fictional figure, “Jane.” Arresting reflections on life pour out of her as she lurches back and forth between a sympathetic optimism that draws others to her, and struggling with her life as a musical artist. In what may be the centerpiece of the album, the Lou Reed-ish “Message From Jane,” the lyric perfectly nails the 21st century human condition. Angelo elaborates: “She’s trying to get that recognition, but not really feeling it all the time … sometimes being used and experiencing the disappointment that comes with it.” In one of the album’s best lines, he lays it out, “She’s always landing somewhere/Just this side of famous.” Offering real compassion for the protagonist he invented, Angelo goes on to say, “Hopefully, Jane’s still around.”
“B.O.T.T.” with its slinky, insistent riff contains a lyric that namechecks a musical landmark, while also referencing Eulene’s grandmother - a celebrity photographer who lived above Carnegie Hall and often babysat her granddaughter: “When she was little she’d dance all around the halls/With Bela Lugosi and Andy Warhol.” And dig the crazy sax interlude at 2:19! Another standout track is “Dangerous Times,” putting a breezy, country flavored tune alongside words of warning. The incredible waterfall-like guitar solo is an inspired addition. The autobiographical “Nashville ‘93” describes the city as Angelo first saw it. And “Ophelia,” with its boozy, Salvation Army Band horns is a song for the ages.
Focusing on his own artistry has long taken a back seat for Angelo. But when he and Eulene found their mojo, it was all systems go. Select live shows with full band are planned in support of the record’s release. This collection of songs and performances is a lively and thought-provoking ride, and I believe you’ll find SUEDE & ‘LENE worthy of your careful inspection. ‘Nuff said.