Joshua Burnside ~ Driftwood Soldier

Driftwood Soldier isn’t your average mandolin-bass foot-stomping gutter-folk duo. Growling and crooning, muttering about lost love, brimstone, and the glorious view from the underside of a rusty world order, Owen holds the rhythm on mandolin and foot percussion. To his left, Bobby stretches bass notes into lyrical vines that vibrate somewhere north of your liver and flower unexpectedly at night. This is the kind of roots music that grows through the cracks in a West Philly sidewalk and drinks its rainwater laced with motor oil.

Their second full-length album, Stay Ahead of the Wolf, arrived late in 2019. It was produced with Erin McKeown and mixed by Grammy winner Ted Hutt. Unfazed by a world in disarray, Stay Ahead of the Wolf crawled up onto its four legs and went barrelling through the digital ether, carrying with it this strange beast’s howl.