Between the Vines ‘Ain’t Country Enough’ – Out Now!
Aint Country Enough is the second album release from Between the Vines, the follow up to their 2018 release 50 Ways to Be Beautiful. Between the Vines are a Southern Rock/Americana band from here in the UK powered by married duo Rebecca and Kev Whitehead.
The album opens with A Little Bit of Road and you are immediately introduced to those male/female harmonies that are one of the marks of the band, before Rebecca’s powerful vocals take centre stage. There’s a great energy to the opener that has you engaged and you already get the impression that this is a band you must see live. Title track Ain’t Country Enough comes next, an ironic track with a delicious sense of humour that shows exactly the opposite of the title.
Every good country album needs a heartbreak song, and All In delivers in spades. This emotive offering sees the protagonist of the song asking ‘When you gonna treat me like the lady I know I am, when you gonna realise there’s no you and I and nobody’s gonna win‘.
Devil’s Play follows, a track with both attitude and sass, with the driving Americana Fight or Flight featuring a rousing chorus and the demanding question ‘Tell me are you tough enough?‘ that adds further badass into the mix. The dark, brooding, sexy Hotel Caroline is up next and is an absolute highlight, a rock track that soars throughout the four and a half minutes. On listening, you already feel that this is an album that needs to be on vinyl and that this track is the epic that brings side one to an end.
Best I Can shows off those harmonies again, a high energy foot-tapper, while Suzie is a real story teller that has you engaged from the first bars. In You Can Love Me the lyrics ‘I’m a Freight Train, screaming down the tracks‘, sends out a message to potential suitors, although in listening it almost feels like this is Rebecca Whitehead telling the world ‘Look out, I’m coming‘, as by track eight you know that she is a lead singer to contend with the very best, giving off an almost Shania like confidence.
Driftwood slows it down with a delightful slide guitar and is perhaps the most traditionally country song on the album, a sad song featuring male and female protagonists who find themselves lost. Feedback starts with an epic electric guitar solo and this sets the stage for a rollicking penultimate track of the album. The release ends with 18 Storeys High, a beautiful closer that ends with ‘I know I’m only the Queen of this Castle, but I see beyond the crimson sky, there’s an ocean of dreams, yeah, a world out there for you and I‘.
Ain’t Country Enough is a stunning album from Between the Vines, led by the incredible vocals of Rebecca Whitehead and supported wonderfully by husband Kev and the rest of the band. As you listen, you are transported to various eras with a timeless Eagles-like vibe to the album at times. I’ve been lucky enough to listen to many artists here from the UK over the last six years and having now been introduced to Between the Vines, I’d put them immediately on my top table.
