Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band - New Threats From The Soul 2LP

2LP set in tip-on gatefold sleeve with insert.

If there’s one name that sums up our 2025, it’s gotta be Ryan Davis. Amid a slew of excellent releases on his label, his first Australian tour, and a much-anticipated second solo LP, was there an issue of Presser where he didn’t get a mention? What can I say, we enjoy flogging quality goods!!! Anyway, time to go on about what we’re always going on about with a proper review of the latest…

There are three ways to go about a review of Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band’s latest collection, New Threats From The Soul. The first would be to mention the much-deserved rise of Davis on the back of this LP, with glowing reviews in the music press, chunky feature articles in Uncut, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, and the like, sold out tours, and already a repress of the album only a few months on from release. Surely a review of this type would end with a “we told you so” from us after we’ve spent the last 5 or so years effusively bleating about a myriad of projects executed by Davis & co (See: State Champion, Equipment Pointed Ankh, Roadhouse, everything on Davis’ killer Sophomore Lounge label, the local CD release of their first album Dancing On The Edge on the Repressed Records shop label).

The second approach would be to remark at how great the lyrics are on this record and do as so many other reviewers have done before and reel off some favourite lines. Davis writes with a humour and wit replete with cartoonish imagery that would make you think David Berman was ghost-writing lyrics for Three 6 Mafia records (Berman famously called him “the best songwriter who isn’t a rapper going”). I could fill a couple of pages quoting lines and by that point you may as well just ready the lyric sheet. Anway, for the record and to prove a point here are some of my favourites this week: 

-          “Jesus Christ is trying out new material on you and me tonight / he has not nailed the crowd work but vice versa / yet stirred the Blood Marys right”
-          “OJDIDIT on a license plate / lightning strikes and ignites the day / I’m pushing this lawnmower down Broadway in a windstorm / twirlin’ like a sex tape in a microwave.”
-          “a dream is a mirror held by a phantom hand”
-          “I learned that time was not my friend or my foe / more like one of the guys from work”

The third way to write about this record is as we normally do – providing a bit of context and continuing our evangelising about it!

For the as yet unfamiliar, Davis is a stalwart of Lousiville’s DIY music scene, as the co-booker behind the Cropped Out festival (look em up on Wikipedia for a FOMO trip) and as the honcho behind the Sophomore Lounge record label. New Threats From the Soul is a continuation of these (as well as his musical) projects. Reading the liner notes you can’t help but notice the swathe of familiar names lending a hand to the record, drawing upon his long history in these worlds: Will Oldham, Ned Collette, Myrian Gendron, Emily Robb, Grace Rogers, Jenny Rose, Elisabeth Fuschia, Catherine Irwin, Shutaro Noguchi, Lou Turner and more. 

Musically, it takes up exactly where Dancing On The Edge left off: long songs that seem to breeze by and reward repeat listens with intricately interwoven lyrics and musical variations. Similar characters crop up again, kicking around on the edges of society in a kind of tragic-comedic despair. The humour in the lyrics is obvious, but it continues through the music as well, a kind of no-bad-ideas collaborative effort that seemed like it was a helluva lot of fun to write and record (and just as much fun to listen). Even after countless plays in the car I’m still finding strange patterns and recurring musical chime-ins from various players, and I’m yet to take a copy home to play yet. Everything from a jovial clarinet line to open the album, to a violin riff over a drum break, to a cacophonous storm of guitar feedback that seems to come from out of nowhere to some wonky drum machines that almost mimic that movement of the album cover. 

That’s not to say that NTFTS is just another DotE. The latest settles into a more drum machine forward second disc and perhaps a more confident layering of characters, jokes, and voices. That being said, if you ask me which is the better record I don’t know if I could split the difference! Like a ton of feathers up against a ton of bricks, it all weighs the same! Both perfect companions to the other, both essential listens!

In the spirit of this month’s gift guide, this would make the perfect gift for fans of music and lyrics (yep, that broad). Or more specifically, for the Boomers into Cohen and Dylan, the Gen X’ers and Millenials into the Drag City songwriters (Bill Callahan/Smog, Silver Jews/Purple Mountains, Palace Music/Bonnie “Prince” Billy), the Gen Z’ers into the trendy new country-leaning wordsmiths (MJ Lenderman or Wednesday), hell, there’s even enough tunes on this album that the Gen Alpha babies could bop along too.
–Mitch