First Impressions: Nowhere to Land by JM Stevens

The album opens with an acoustic guitar that gives way to a steady beat. “There’s a voice inside/That echoes in my mind/Telling me to beware/And that I’m running blind.” Nagging self-doubt drives the song, “Dry Creek,” but doesn’t prevent Austin-based JM Stevens from pushing on: “So hold on tight it’s gonna be a bumpy ride/’Til we find salvation on the other side.” Along the way, he shares a poetic observation that’s sure to hit home for some: “There’s a future up over the ridge/And that dry creek was once water under the bridge.”

The sophomore set from Stevens conjures an array of artists and bands, from the “Take It to the Limit”-era Eagles to the Flying Burrito Brothers (circa the Rick Roberts years) to country singer Paul Overstreet, but those echoes never overwhelm the sound or songs. They’re laidback and lyrical, philosophical even, with words and phrases lingering like morning mist on a grassy field. Some are serious odes to tough subjects, to be sure, but even they feature sly asides. Witness this line from “Why Won’t You Call,” which finds him digging into the insecurity he feels when his better half is out on the town: “I heard you sneaking in/Guess you forgot to WD40 the hinge.” (Somewhere, my late father—a WD40 adherent if ever there was one—is laughing.)

The upbeat “Cherry Sunburst,” released as a single a few weeks back, could well be about a potential partner—and, in a way, it is. Stevens’ object of affection is a curvy guitar: “The first time I laid eyes on you/I had another on my arms/I tried my best just to remain true/And fight your cherry burst charm.” That it can be heard as a metaphor about more than desiring a flashy instrument makes it resonate all the louder. 

The title track, for its part, is a minimalistic treatise on empathy and lending an ear. Sometimes there’s not much one can actually do or say to soothe another; what they need most is just to be heard: “It’s hard to find the words to say/So I’m gonna do less looking and more listening today.” Other songs delve into couples coming together and drifting apart, and the minutiae therein. “After the Storm,” for its part, turns the ice storm that paralyzed Texas in 2021 into a metaphor for life’s difficult moments. 

The closing song, “Too Fast for Me,” delves into the fast pace of life, which only seems to pick up speed with every new year. Hand in hand with that is the ever-changing world around us: “They cut down the trees in the shady grove/What once was real now only memory/This world is moving too fast for me.” (Every generation, I think, witnesses paradise torn down and replaced by a parking lot—or, as is happening ‘round my parts, apartment complexes.)

In short, Nowhere to Land explores the fears, worries and joys that punctuate life circa 2024, and does so in the best way possible: to fully formed melodies that linger long after the music has faded to silence. Many of the tracks would have found a home on the AAA stations of yore, I think, played before or after songs from Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, James McMurtry and/or Mary Chapin Carpenter. It’s a great set.