Colin Gilmore

The peculiar nature of Colin Gilmore's Oedipal conflict is that it doesn't seem like a conflict at all. The son of country mystic Jimmie Dale Gilmore neither threatens nor succumbs to the father; he just sounds like a young, gifted musician raised in the hometown of Buddy Holly during a milieu of permanent belatedness, one of post-honky-tonk, post-folk and post-punk. Gilmore never thinks twice about an identity that embraces all three, letting the guitars rip when they need to, rocking an R.E.M. melodic chime with some Tejano bounce and preferring pop craft to narrative yarns. His tantalizingly brief 2007 EP Black Wine has a twangy, power-pop soul (courtesy, in part, of infallible producer Scott Matthews), a wit that stings and a talent that's a pleasure to hear unfold.