ONE ELEVEN HEAVY

ONE ELEVEN HEAVY were something of a transatlantic supergroup when they formed a few years ago. James Jackson Toth – aka Wooden Wand, the singer-songwriter behind numerous “New Weird America” outfits like Dunza, Grim Jim, Hassara and James And The Giants – met Bradford-born musician Nick Mitchell Maiato at a Manchester gig in 2010 and instantly bonded over a shared love of Neil Young, Little Feat and the Grateful Dead. After forming a band with assorted members of Royal Trux,, you can hear shades of everything from Gram Parsons to Willie Nelson, from Michael Hurley to David Crosby, from the Allman Brothers to Santana, with nods to Led Zeppelin, Mike Cooper and the Incredible String Band for good measure. But this is also an album that buzzes with cultural references, both high and low. “” is a typically bathetic line, and there are dozens of similar lyrics that namecheck everything from to , from “Chatanooga Choo Choo” to , from trashy cowboy flicks to dark literary fiction.