“Creating a narrator through which autobiographical stories can be told is a well-established literary device, and it’s one that MC Taylor, leader of North Carolina five-piece Hiss Golden Messenger, deploys to good effect on his latest album of superior Americana. As “Michael Crow”, Taylor tells stories from different eras of his life, some real, some imagined: as a teenager, as a struggling musici”
““Woke up this morning, my God I felt happy / What a strange sensation,” North Carolina-based songwriter MC Taylor sings on the sprightly ‘Shinbone’, one of the many of high points on Taylor’s latest offering under the ever-evolving Hiss Golden Messenger banner. Jump for Joy is certainly an apt choice for title. In stark contrast to the troubled ruminations and sense of the correct order of things”
“On a loosely conceptual project, the singer-songwriter finds his groove in smooth, soft-rock sounds and adolescent optimism.”
