While Barnes has studiously earned a reputation at home and abroad as a fine blues-style guitar player, his fifth album belatedly signals his emergence as a singer and songwriter of equal note.
Comparisons to Kelly Joe Phelps, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen are all valid – if there’s a criticism it revolves around the US accented vocal style he uses at times. ‘Shotgun Grin’ has some gritty “banjitar”, Hammond organ and sureshot vocal backing from Siobhan O’Brien. The title-track and ‘City Lights’ see Barnes channelling his love for the aforementioned Mr. Waits, while the chillingly soulful ‘Dust’ is notable for his impeccable guitar playing and a voice that seems to seep from beyond the basement. The delicious ‘Long Way Around’ has echoes of Springsteen, and ‘Looking Down The Cross’ is simultaneously insistent and mesmerising, with fret-melting guitar figures in spades. There’s an achingly forlorn quality to the singing and pedal steel on ‘Losing’ too.
Lyrically, The Ghost Country draws comparisons with Dylan’s mid-80s preoccupation with the movies, with images of the lost, the innocent, desolate deserts, the unbearable sun and trains borrowed from the big screen. Exuding a throat-catching melancholy, and romantic and bleak by turns, it sounds like an album made for all eternity.