Dustin Welch - Tijuana Bible (2013)

This is the sophomore release of this Nashville born and raised Austin resident, who also happens to be the son of singer/songwriter Kevin Welch and the brother of Savannah Welch (the Trishas). With a family like that you can assume, and you would be right, that he was exposed to music at an early age; and he seemed to have a natural affinity for instruments with strings on them, picking them up around the houses where he was raised. He plays acoustic guitar, gut-string guitar and banjo oh this disc, as well as doing lead vocals. He has an exceedingly tight backing band that features some excellent musicians; Jeremy Nail on electric guitars, Trisha Keefer on violin, Scotty Bucklin handles piano, keyboards, and accordion among others.

He either wrote or co-wrote all of the songs including one, Ash & Iron, he co-wrote with his father. The music on the disc runs the gamut of Americana, rock, folk, punk and probably a few other strains thrown into his blender to chew them up and mix them all into a mass that ranges from pulp fiction to Goth in the house of distorted mirrors. There is a sense of mysticism that runs through the disc that shows he has read Joseph Campbell as well as authors, such as Cormac McCarthy, who approach a subject obliquely. The author of the songs is a complex individual who has many facets to his self and isn't afraid to reveal, however obliquely, to his listeners various particulars no matter how fractured and disparate they may appear to be; they are the pieces that make up the whole of the person. This is a songwriter that is growing into himself and exploring and who is worth keeping an eye on.