Cory Hanson

Cory Hanson brings with him a touch of bittersweet loneliness, a pinch of hazy nostalgia for the folk poets of the seventies, and an endless supply of heart-wrenching riffs, all of which serve to strip contemporary songwriting of its commercial cloyingness. The ease with which he achieves this is bound to raise even the eyebrows of long-standing Neil Young die-hards. First of all: the influences are clear. A touch of Doug Martsch shines through here, as do the Grateful Dead, Blue Oyster Cult, Soundgarden and Sonic Youth. And yet the foundation is clearly rooted in very alternative country rock. Albums such as the debut “The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo” (2016) or the magnificently eclectic “Western Cum” (2023), however, fuse all of this into a style that simply works from start to finish. Cory Hanson is not merely a virtuoso who crosses the boundaries of Americana, but also a shrewd chronicler of contemporary America with all its uncertainties, upheavals and doomsday scenarios. This was already evident when he was frontman of the band Wand. With his solo albums over the last few years, however, he has expanded his qualities as a musician and poet in a disruptive way that makes him stand out from the crowd like a lighthouse in the sea.