Cactus Lee

Kevin Dehan has quickly built the Cactus Lee catalog into a solid string of releases over the past few years. Rising from a bedroom entity, dipped in the trapping of the private press crowd, the band has grown in the studio and on the stage into a proper country revue. If you’ve had the pleasure of catching Dehan’s live show, then the new album should feel pretty familiar. Like the relaxed stage persona that’s become Cactus Lee, the songs on the eponymous new album feel lived in and languid. Dehan doesn’t go in for the cosmic fumes that have haloed quite a few of the newer country crowd, instead balancing a classic strain of Southern charms with a lusher production palette this time around. Caravan pushed the band towards a studio shine, but there’s something that’s just incredibly comfortable about Cactus Lee.

That’s not to say this is an album with Dehan resting on his laurels, far from it. The record’s comforts don’t come easy and with an assembled band that features quite a few familiar names — Adam Amram, Bukka Allen, Jon ‘Catfish’ Delorme among others — the album employs an ace team in the studio. Cushioned cords and layered background vocals turn Dehan’s Americana into something classically cured. It’s not always showy, but the craftsmanship shines through in each song. Laying into the lonesomeness of the road, the give and take of love and loss, and the foundations of family, the record’s themes always land well with the soft-hearted delivery of Dehan arriving on warm winds. It’s a record ripe for the seasonal change, so slip the windows down a notch and turn Cactus Lee up a little louder.

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