Beware the term »Americana« for there are some very dull dogs who?ve found shelter below its enormous umbrella. So I love Johnny Dowd, because he sounds like the unregenerate voice of a real place and not a marketing concept. This particular release is just a catching up on old demos, such as a version of the title track from Dowd?s tremendous last album The Pawnbroker?s Wife. I know nothing about this guy on a biographical level, but his songs could have sound-tracked Twin Peaks: they?re grimly funny, flinty affairs, full of adultery, god, remorse and the trials of a farmer?s life- just like proper country and western used to be. And they sound cranked out through what you imagine to be Link Wray?s lost amplifier, rusting and abandoned these past 40 years." Paul du Noyer. . . Word Magazine UK