Music Review: Jeffrey Halford and the Healers

Jeffrey Halford and the Healers combine a locomotion of seemingly boundless guitar riffs and use the sounds of country icons like Waylon Jennings and George Jones as musical frames for the unfurled feel of those prairie stretches. Jeffrey Halford and the Healers appreciate atmospheric touches on their song “Deeper Than Hell”, making the choice a natural fit for the singer’s sustained vocals.

Borrowing both the stylistic and storytelling genealogies of folk and traditional country, the band extend a tip-of-the-hat to their golden fields. This source of lasting revelations comes from the album West Towards South which has inspired its own compendium of songs.

“Deeper Than Hell” is the band’s attempt to fill intoxicating rasps more squarely into a country storyline. Jeffrey Halford and the Healers play entirely with an edgy darkness, the vocalist’s voice digging crevices rich with heartbreak and shifting his original jaunt into something more somber and haunted.

The singer finds little solace in his pressing troubles, rattling the cage that pulls him away from his freedom and which holds him back from what he wants. When nothing but time can still the pain, “Deeper Than Hell” will see you through. It’s the lonesomeness of jukebox country meeting the darkness of an outlaw, where the whiskey-stained tenacity of the blues is spiked with the honey of AM pop.

Jeffrey Halford and the Healers underscore the vulnerability and toughness of their music. Through melodic wording you become exposed to the bumps that manifest as chaos and grief. The singer’s voice cracks and quivers, allowing his narrative to come alive as it so demands. “Deeper Than Hell” is dramatically upfront, suspended, and locking into mellow grooves that sound amazing.