It wasn’t intentional, but once I settled on these six records for this month’s Founders’ Keepers, I realized they consist of two artists from Austin, two from Nashville, and two from the North Carolina Triangle. Those from Music City are, perhaps surprisingly, the least-known, and they provide the frame here: This is Suede & ’Lene’s debut, though hardly the first music ever made by these ringers, while Lance Cowan recently made the rare jump from longtime publicist to acclaimed artist. Fans of the indie-rock branch of Americana will know Carolina mainstays Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey well, from their duo records and with the dB’s. And BettySoo and Little Mazarn, longtime pillars of Austin’s indie-folk community, fully deserve the wider recognition they’ve been getting in recent years.
Suede & ’Lene — Hymns For Lost Things
I owe the great record man Peter Jesperson (Twin/Tone, New West, Replacements manager) for turning me on to the Nashville duo of Angelo Petraglia and Eulene Sherman, whose out-of-nowhere debut album instantly ranks with the best records released in 2025. The band is new, but Petraglia (a.k.a. Suede) has been around: His 1980s new-wave band Face To Face had a minor pop hit, he’s been a key collaborator with 21st-century rockers Kings of Leon (as both co-writer and producer), and he’s had songs covered by the likes of Patty Griffin, Trisha Yearwood, Peter Wolf, even Taylor Swift. But Hymns For Lost Things is far greater than the sum of all those credits might indicate — especially for an artist reaching full bloom at age 71. It has that rare quality of certain great albums: Listen once, and you’ll be convinced these songs have been with you for your entire life.
Petraglia and Sherman write the music together; he’s the lyricist and guitarist/keyboardist, while Sherman plays bass and contributes essential backing vocals. Is this Americana (whatever that is)? Make your own call, but I think Suede & ’Lene tuck neatly into the rock edges of that wide umbrella, much like Alejandro Escovedo in his glammier ventures. Opener “A Message From Jane” sets the tone, with Petraglia’s charismatic speak-sing voice revealing a little more about the elusive Jane in each verse as the intensity builds in the arrangement. (“She’s still filled with wonder”; “She wants a public defender”; “She’s always landing somewhere just this side of famous.”) Petraglia happily cops to his lyrical influences, as track two “B.O.T.T.” makes clear; that stands for, uh, “Blood On The Tracks,” but he weaves his references into fresh takes: “We can let the idiot wind blow through our heads.”
The hits just keep on coming. “Nashville ’93” documents Petraglia’s move to Music City three decades ago from the Northeast, somehow managing to sound nostalgic and ultra-cool in the same breath. Religious commentary? Check out “God Sends The Devil” and its bipolar philosophical declaration: “Sometimes God, to get things done, he’d send the devil.” Suede & ’Lene aren’t overly political, but they paint a properly bleak picture with “Dangerous Times” and especially “Living In The Country,” which turns that seemingly bucolic song-title on its head: “You ain’t living in the country you think you are.” (Amen to that.) By the time we hit track 9, “I Was In A Cult,” this party is gloriously out of control: Petraglia chants the title phrase, Sherman echoes with frenetic affirmations that “He was in a cult!” — and rock & roll finally feels reborn all over again.
