Sometimes, I think that this alt-country thing isn't ever going to go away. It has its phases, and sometimes it's popular, and sometimes it's not, but somehow it always survives, maintained by a dedicated core of devoted fans, who carry it through the hard times, and lift it up during the good. Much like the actual people of the countryside, alt-country music seems to bloom in isolation, and wither when surrounded by the attention of us city people.

The Graze is one such outfit, a one-man musical project from the previously unknown Louis O'Callaghan. He draws his inspiration from the lyrical bombast of Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes, and the instrumental fireworks of Wilco, producing a mixture that would be hopelessly arrogant and self-serving were it not delivered with such conviction and feeling.

O'Callaghan comes off as a grumpy old bastard for most of this album, but since there's a fine tradition of country music artists in this vein, it's something that you can at least understand. Unfortunately, he's not a very charismatic individual, and rather than liking him because he's rough and raw, you end up disliking him because he's bitter and unpleasant. Everything is an example of this, where he treads perilously close to whining in a distinctly emo fashion. On Rely, his almost defeated, bitter tone makes you wish that he'd just shut up and resolve things himself. Luckily, on some of the later tracks, he brightens up considerably, but by that point, your mental image of him as a crabby old git is already firmly established.

He does have some other advantages though, and those are his guitar playing skills. On Devices, he lets loose with a guitar solo that isn't fast, which isn't technically brilliant, yet still works perfectly with the sound of the song and the mood that he's trying to create. Ironically, for a genre that's more noted for its lyrical content than its instrumental content, The Graze's advantage lies in the instrumentation. It's an advantage that is frequently exploited, both in the aforementioned solos, and in the musical backbone of songs like Filler, which is anything but.

"Iowa Anvil" is an album of solid alt-country that is spoiled by the main figure behind the music sounding so unlikable and harsh. Perhaps if O'Callaghan sounded a bit softer, I'd find this music a bit easier to get into. If you can stomach his personality though, you'll likely find lots to enjoy here though, since he's most definitely a very skilled and articulate songwriter and performer.