If It's Too Loud...

Last year's New England Americana Festival was one of my musical highlights of 2025. There's just something great about hanging out in a field watching folk, bluegrass, country, and any other branch of Americana that's out there. Plus, I love Bellforge Arts Center, and try to get down there to see virtually anything at that wonderfully underrated venue. Today the festival announces their 2026 line up, and it's simply great. There are a ton of If It's Too Loud... favorites, plus a few new bands we can't wait to explore. This year's festival includes hosts and 2025 Boston Music Awards Americana Artist of the year Kier Burns & The Kettle Burners, Nate Perry & Ragged Company, Other Brother Darryl, Elisa Smith, Jennifer Tefft & The Strange, Tigerman Woah, berm, Regals, Dirt Road Souls, Autumn Hollow, Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion, Comanchero, Consuelo's Revenge, and damian and the displayers. It's a great selection of some of our favo...

The 2025 winners of Americana Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards are back with a new EP. Last Friday saw Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burners release Moonshine & Other Spirits , a collection of three original songs and two covers. The songs that make up the EP are a perfect mixture of rock and country/folk without ever truly choosing one over the other. The opening track, "My Baby's Happy," features Elisa Smith and sounds like the Rolling Stones' experimentations into country while keeping their bluesier sound. "Impossible" sounds like if The Clash went country. The other original track, "Make Me Wanna Dance (Moonshine Shuffle)," gets closer to rockabilly than Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burners have been before. For the covers, the band has gone with "Goin' Down in Style" from Robery Earl Kean and "Whitehouse Road" from Tyler Childers. Any time is a great time to jump on the Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burn...

Photo courtesy Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burners Boston based Americana sextet Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burners have a new EP out that if perfect if you don't want your folk to be quiet. Dances by Firelight is a collection of five accordion heavy songs that are perfect for shouting out along to while raising a glass at one of their live shows. These songs aren't pure folk as there are some rock elements that peek through the Americana base, but folk is the main element for all five songs on the EP. Even the slower songs like "Don't Let Perfect" and "Further Down the Road" have a rowdy edge to them, while "Little Bit More, Little Bit Less" is one of our favorite drinking songs of the year. All of the songs on Dances by Firelight end up being ridiculously fun, and you just know their live shows will be second to none. Kier Byrnes says of his band's new EP: “I think this EP is just scratching the surface of The Kettle Burners’ sound. We...