Review: Houndmouth at Salvage Station

Houndmouth’s leanest-ever lineup played the band’s biggest-ever Asheville show on April 19, holding down the season-opener headlining slot on Salvage Station’s outdoor stage.

The roots-rock group, which formed as a collaborative quartet a dozen-plus years ago in the “Brooklyn of Louisville” — aka New Albany, Indiana, just over the Ohio River — has been quietly shedding founding members with each new album and tour. 

Primary singer/songwriter and guitarist Matt Myers is now single-handedly carrying the Houndmouth torch, performing with a capable crew of musicians who fill their predecessors’ shoes enough to skate past the ears of most, but likely leave the band’s more tenured fans feeling somewhat shortchanged. 

A moody arrangement of “On the Road” — the first song on Houndmouth’s first full-length album, From the Hills Below the City — seemed like a curiously nostalgic choice for an opener, with Myers leaning into a chorus that landed with new meaning given the band’s splintered status.

I’m going down, where nobody knows me/
I'm going down, ain't nobody gonna know me

Houndmouth emerged onto the scene around the same time as The Lumineers, The Head and the Heart, and other co-ed, early-20s “Americana” acts that ultimately reached larger followings on the strength of stomp-clap-holler radio hits. Myers, keyboardist Katie Toupin, bassist Zak Appleby, and drummer Shane Cody occupied a grittier, greasier — and decidedly more Midwestern — lane than these contemporaries. Folk-noir character sketches and four distinct singers aligned them more closely with Deer Tick, The Felice Brothers, and other scrappy disciples of The Band. They came across as confident underdogs who took their craft, but not themselves, seriously.

But it didn’t take long for cracks in the foundation to show. Toupin went solo following the band’s sophomore album, Little Neon Limelight, and Appleby departed after 2018’s Golden Age. Cody exited last fall after extensive touring behind the latest Houndmouth release, Good For You, recorded in his grandparents’ 19th-century house with in-demand producer Brad Cook.

The hallmarks of Houndmouth’s catalog are colorfully spun stories of ne'er-do-wells and misfits, laced with dark, Coen Brothers-esque humor and location-specific imagery that build to colossal, shout-along choruses. The Salvage Station crowd was introduced to “My Cousin Greg”; Oliver Asley Lane, the “quarter-the-way-insane” trust-funder protagonist in “Black Gold”; crafty ingénue “McKenzie”; and Sweet Dionysus, a groupie who outstays her welcome in the opening verse of “Miracle Mile.”

An underrated guitarist who handles both rhythm and lead duties, Myers toed the front of the stage for extended solos on bluesy slow-burners like “Palmyra,” “Make It to Midnight,” and the set-closing “Darlin’.” The frontman pogoed about on a rollicking, piano-driven run-through of Terry Allen’s “Amarillo Highway (For Dave Hickey)” and “Waiting for the Night,” the set’s lone selection from Golden Age, Houndmouth’s polarizing detour into MGMT-adjacent, synth-heavy glam pop. The tender “Good for You” and “Cool Jam” were early-set standouts. 

Myers kicked off the encore on his own with the brooding “For No One” and a few unreleased songs before bringing back the band to predictably close with the biggest Houndmouth hit, the panoramic “Sedona.” 

Overall, the show effectively channeled the energy of OG Houndmouth, but noticeably absent were the lead vocals of Cody (“Honey Slider”), Appleby (“15 Years,” “Hey Rose”), and Toupin [“Houston Train,” “Casino (Bad Things)”], and the on-stage chemistry of yesteryear. Time will tell if Myers continues to channel his talents into writing and recording under the Houndmouth moniker or rebrands as a solo project. Either way, his talents will no doubt render music that finds a receptive audience.

(Photo by Garret K. Woodward)