In the realm of crooning folk rock The Light Wires are a godsend. Singer Jeremy Pinnell delivers his longing lyrics with a lump of tears in his throat that no one has mastered since Adam Durst. It's warm in the way my house felt in Montana after coming in from -13 degrees outside to a heater. The pain in the songs sounds like it was channeled through Neil Young, filtered through Elliott Smith and then slowly dripped out of Pinnell. Even when Pinnell and company turn on just a smidge of rock, the mellowness under their guitars is always present. In "Belly Of The Beast" Pinnell sings about addiction in a way that no one has touched sine "Needle and the Damage Done." This is a strong debut from these Cincinnati folkers.

- Modern Fix

The Light Wires, the four-piece band framed slyly around songwriter Jeremy Pinnell's snaky amalgam of American music, have learned a thing or two about contradiction in their short year together. First formed to serve as a platform for Pinnell’s remarkable songwriting, the Cincinnati, Ohio band has found themselves in the thorny space between reverence to and subversion of the traditional American songbook.

In the summer of 2002, Pinnell (late of Ladderday), band-less and busy amassing an imposing catalog of songs, enlisted longtime friend and multi-instrumentalist Mike Montgomery to expand some musical ideas. Upon hearing the first traces of Pinnell’s ageless compositions, Rick McCarty (with Montgomery in Thistle, El Gigante, and Ampline) and Andy Hittle (also in El Gigante) quickly insinuated themselves into the fold and helped to flesh out the songs. And before they even had a name, The Light Wires had mesmerized its first audience with its mood-swinging forays into plaintive laments and wiry tangles of American song. Pinnell’s brilliant three-minute dramas had found a home with accommodating musicians who knew how to enlarge as well as dismantle his tunes.

Today, to hear The Light Wires is to appreciate the sum of its parts. Pinnell’s voice, honest, resonant, and devastatingly clear, completes his deceptively simple acoustic guitar fragments while the rest of the band steps obliquely in and out of the frame. Montgomery and McCarty, young musical veterans both, supplement Pinnell’s songs with tasteful highlights. The resulting effect is one of respect toward the traditional rhythm section while challenging convention with startling melodic lines, whispering percussion, and dramatic respites. Hittle’s cunning guitar completes the compositions with allusions to elegant Nashville lines while undermining the proceedings with innovative textures and phrasing. On balance, the sound simultaneously nods toward and takes the piss out of Nebraska-era Springsteen and the singer-songwriter tradition.

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