Purple mountains, empty highways, jet trails as the sun fades; Dogwood Tales paint in valley colors on their forthcoming album, Every Star in Rockingham County. Hailing from Harrisonburg, VA in the heart of Shenandoah, the band is fronted by founders and childhood friends Kyle Grim (guitar/vocals) and Ben Ryan (guitar/vocals), alongside college contemporaries Jake Golibart (drums) and Danny Gibney (bass). With its location in its title, their new album is as much a love letter to the local DIY scene, vast farmlands and surrounding mystical mountains as it is a portrait of present-day small town American life. While tracks like “Mt. Jackson” speak candidly about the experience of songwriter Kyle Grim seeing his once cheerful, tractor-driving uncle hospital bound, it also captures a broader, ever-relatable image of a society drowned in hospital bills and anxieties of what could have been, keeping us at odds with the ever present moment.

Though heavy and personal in its lyrical content, the album was born out of a spirit of naivety and experimentation that breathes lightness and excitement into the music. Pedal steel chords and delicate harmonization between Ryan and Grim — who’ve at this point been singing together half their lives — accompany jamming power pop drumlines by Golibart, tasteful guitar licks and wistful video game soundbites. Whether it’s song titles like “Princess Peach” and the football games and Coca-Colas of “McMemories” Dogwood Tales speaks in a vocabulary previously unexplored in earlier works, unafraid of showing as much reverence for iconic fast food and video game characters as they do their grandmothers and local basketball legends. Or the achingly specific lyrics in “Angel Dreams”, “We drove to Southern Kitchen, you wouldn’t even play my favourite song. You cried in your fried chicken, the waitress thought I said something wrong,” it’s easy to feel like you’re sitting on a couch in the band’s attic; sharing stories, ambient Gamecube on in the background.

The humming electric guitars over beds of pedal steel and earnest lyricism find ESiRC in dialogue with indie rock’s current Lo-Fi country romanticism, lyrically pays homage to revered American songwriters in the footsteps of Townes Van Zandt, but ultimately takes listeners on a ride through uncharted territory. It’s a ride through Rockingham county, through the moody valley, the tight bond of four friends coming of age in a rural Virginia town, and a digital age where loneliness is far too prevalent. Thankfully, we’ve got the stars to keep us company.

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