[12.03] As autumn draws to a close, it becomes a special time for sadness. The world sighs deeply. And, sometimes it's nice to have a few songs to help you along. Not to ease the pain, exactly, but to make the passing more communal, more understandable.

And it seems that Milton Mapes might feel the same. Westernaire carries a dull shine, like wet brown leaves. Many songs carry off melancholy without getting sappy. "Palo Duro" serves as the best examples of the Milton Mapes sentiment: an earnest and traditional western heartbreaker that urges you to fill your glass with some more red liquor and find some fading photos of someone you knew way back.

However, there's more to the album than whiskey-soaked ballads. Indeed, Mapes mastermind Greg Vanderpool doesn't let himself get stuck, adding a refreshing dash of sound and fury to many of the songs. "Everyone Around" conjures a '68 Coup de Ville flying down sun-bleached Texas highways and "Some to Reap" is a little country and a whole lotta rock 'n' roll. Others, such as opener "Great Unknown," use purposefully simple acoustic guitar loops to create a meditative state. The album closes with a similarly hypnotic line that amplifies into an almost Freebird-like crescendo. The result is very satisfying, if a little too radio-ready.

While Westernaire doesn't exactly break new ground, many songs reflect masterful production and a keen sense of arrangement. Vanderpool and company wield familiar low-slung Les Pauls, but also employ the sounds of harmonicas, banjo, sax, and dobro. If you're familiar with the attitudes of many artists on the Bloodshot label, you'll like Milton Mapes. If you like Lucero or Richmond Fontaine, you'll like Mapes even more. Vanderpool searches the dark motels and discarded pool halls looking for that thing that got away. Of course he doesn't find it, but that's the point. But he finds what all poets know, that heart lies at the center of sadness and regret. There's honesty here, if not a lot of insight. And that's alright, because it seems that Vanderpool himself knew that his lot lay down a well-trodden path. Like he says on "Palo Duro":

"Last night I danced with a stranger But she just reminded me that you were the one. Somebody else one time said it better I think Dylan but it may have been Young." —Jeremy