Reed Waddle’s ‘Lonesome Dove’ gives feather-light Americana a spectrally melancholic wingspan –

Reed Waddle gave the singer-songwriter genre back its wings with his latest spectrally melancholic single, Lonesome Dove. A Telluride Troubadour Grand Prize winner and decorated songwriter with roots stretching through Boston, New York, Nashville and Atlanta, Waddle brought his road-worn Americana gravity to his spiritually loaded, yet weightless production.

The feather-light approach to Americana reaches the epitome of diaphanous sublimity as Waddle resists easy reminiscence of the greats with the soul-stirring resonance he draws from lap steel strings. Sure, listeners can clutch at the lineage of Townes Van Zandt, Jason Isbell and the chapel-stained end of classic country soul to allude to the haunting introspection pouring like smoke across the winding, roots-rooted instrumental arrangement. But his authenticity is far more impressive than vague sonic semblances.

After Lonesome Dove has built towards a quasi-gospel-esque atmosphere and inched towards an outro that leaves you almost at a loss with what to do with yourself, for the way the parable-driven single embodies loneliness in its rawest, most uncorrected state, he silently invites you to sit beside the void and breathe. Don’t be surprised if the single epiphanously awakens you to absences you never realised lived within you, which, frankly, is rude as hell and gorgeous in the best possible way.

Lonesome Dove is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast