I love "Ride The Wind To Me" and it was one of the key songs of my last year, but before this record, it was the only Julie Miller cut that I'd heard. Buddy and Julie are husband and wife, and seem to have recorded a fair bit together; I don't know how it goes on the rest of their records, but on this one, while the vocals are split about 50-50, all of the original songwriting credits go to Julie, making it the next best thing to a solo album (I'm pretty sure that that's Buddy providing the guitars on "Ride The Wind To Me" anyway - the guitar work and parts sound very similar).
So it's grittier and bluesier than I would've expected of a Julie Miller record - the melodies are upfront and memorable, but so too are the grinding electric guitars and the swampy basslines (these elements reach their apotheosis in the near seven-minute workout "Dirty Water", possibly not coincidentally the only song which is co-credited to Julie and Buddy). Vocals-wise, about half of the songs are honest to goodness duets between the two, usually involving lots of unison singing and close harmonies, while lead vocals are taken on equal numbers of the remaining cuts by each (though it's not always especially helpful to draw lines between these 'types' of songs). Buddy's soulful voice is a good foil for Julie's gorgeous keen, and vice versa, and together they come up with a kind of melodic country-blues-rock thing which is pretty fine. There's nothing on here which I like as much as "Ride The Wind To Me", but after all it's a different kind of record, and there are moments of the same heart-stopping prettiness mingled with expansively sketched drive and dynamic, so I'm not at all disappointed with it. These guys should be better known than they are.
