Album Review: For Use and Delight by Promised Land Sound

The Nashville indie underground has become a haven for experimental psych and garage combos playing against Music City's reputation for slick country and pop. From the more pastoral end of this spectrum are Promised Land Sound, whose excellent sophomore LP, For Use and Delight, manages a robust rock clamor that sways with an earthy Big Pink-meets-Workingman's Dead spirit. Although they were born out of the city's garage scene, it's clear that the young band's musical allegiances are more aligned with bands like the Flying Burrito Brothers and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

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Promised Land Sound is a group of young guys in their early 20s, musicians who weren’t alive when their primary influences – Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, Poco – were stretching the boundaries of what country and rock could be when combined, with a touch of psychedelia in the mix as well. Although press materials are overselling the psychedelic aspect of Promised Land Sound’s music, there’s a dreamy, hazy glow in much of their material reminiscent of other genre revivalists such as Beachwood Sparks. Second album For Use and Delight’s opener “Push and Pull (All the Time)” employs a determined, walking rhythm with watery, shimmering jangle guitar that sets a strong start to a satisfying collection of songs.

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Let’s get some of the inevitable comparisons outta the way: on this young Nashville combo’s sophomore platter one encounters elements both overt and suggestive of the Rolling Stones (the earworm riffs), Quicksilver Messenger Service (the lyrical guitar ballets), the Byrds (the cosmic cowboy vibes), Big Star (the unusual melodic twists) and Tom Petty (the romantically drawling vocals). That’s no summary, though, ‘cos these cats have a slow-burn intensity that’s remarkable. No wonder Mr.

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