Record Label: Small Batch Records

A different kind of concept album from Memphis songsters Shepherd and Hulett that fuses elements of the West and the “Western” genre into a musical panoply. The disc kicks off strong with “A Grave Woman,” featuring Shepherd using her vocal talents to inhabit some rather mournful strains.

I liked how the western motif continues on the eerie “Desert Carpet,” with Hulett and Shepherd sharing a most unusual story. “Western Wind” feels like an anti-romance told in minor key, and “Time Is a Thief” is a dirge about the undefeated nature of the clock as conqueror. Hulett gets a bit more upbeat on “The Fog,” and Shepherd gets her turn at the center of the stage with some haunting vocals on album-closer “The One Who Knew Me.”

In an email, Shepherd said that she learned of the Norse myth “The Wild Hunt” some years ago, and she was anxious to marry its themes with those of America’s own Western frontier.

“I had always wanted to write a Western where a woman comes back from the dead to avenge her death, and has a spirit guide in the form of a coyote,” she said. “Jeff and I talked about my idea vaguely in 2020, and Jeff turned around and wrote the song ‘Coyote’ for our first album.

“When I moved to Arizona in 2025, I put the idea of the Western together with the idea of the Wild Hunt, and called Jeff to make the soundtrack with me. The whole project sort of rode off on its own. It’s been the most fun I have ever had working on something.”

Now available on Bandcamp, Kindle, iTunes and elsewhere.

Notable Tracks: A Grave Woman, Desert Carpet, Western Wind, Time Is a Thief, The One Who Knew Me
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