The Flatlanders: Hills and Valleys [New West]

By Steven Rosen Horse Whisperer soundtrack. The three Americana role models share writing credits create strongest post- reunion album to date on eight songs, and create vividly rendered The Flatlanders are tales about restless now more a band than hearts, wide-open a legend, to inversely spaces and troubled paraphrase the title of times. They also have their first CD. By the carefully crafted melo- time More a Legend dies, especially the Than a Band came out in 1990, it was mid-tempo compositions replete with primarily a historic document, drawn folk-rock hooks. “Homeland Refugee,” from the 1972 sessions of one of Texas’ sung by Ely, updates Steinbeck and earliest and short-lived alternative- Woody Guthrie with hauntingly vivid country bands. But as the band detail; “Borderless Love” is both ro- members-Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and mantic and political. Hancock’s Jimmie Dale Gilmore-began to have “Thank God for the Road” showcases successful solo careers as singer- his characteristic inventive wordplay, songwriters, interest grew in their always careful to be sincere and not long-forgotten Flatlanders roots. merely clever. Although there are a The primarily acoustic Hills and couple filler songs sprinkled through- Valleys, produced by Lloyd Maines, is out, the Flatlanders are clearly no the Flatlanders' third and strongest longer a mere legend. They're elders of album since reuniting in 1998 for The Americana music. Role models, even.