Windmills, the second release from Kalamazoo’s The Almanac Shouters, displays that the trio firmly have their brand of folkpunk down.  The guitar/banjo/upright bass line-up can blaze when necessary, but more often, they are rooted in a slower Americana sound that is entirely congenial to the lyrics which largely deal with self-reflection and the next step in life (a lot of questions are asked in these songs).  There’s the occasional dip into more political matters; “N.R.A. (Neo-Radical Anarchists)” is the most rompin’ shaker found in the batch with an intense “Put down the gun!” chorus.

The male/female vocals are fittingly raw, with frontman and guitarist Alex Quinlan’s gritty lower register balanced by banjoist Nola Wiersma’s childlike upper.  She takes the lead vocal on “Thirteen,” an absolutely heartwarming nostalgia number. Bassist Rory Svekric can walk all over the fretboard, but has the instinct to keep space between the notes when needed.

The homemade production fits with the handcrafted quality of the band, as does the packaging (including a booklet containing ALL the lyrics).  The title track sounds as if it were recorded on a handheld cassette player, much like John Lennon’s “My Mummy’s Dead” but the song itself has more of a Tom Waits quality, maybe like the ancient-sounding 78 version of “Innocent When You Dream”.

There is a definite Johnny Cash influence evident in the songwriting.  In fact, the album closer, “So it goes…”, which chronicles the history of the Shouters, contains a chorus reminiscent of “Ring of Fire”. Throughout, there is a strong knowledge of older folk music present (hell, the band name is a reference to a project Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were involved in), but the Shouters don’t deny they are living in the modern age: “Will you grow old with me?/Child of the digital age/Or you can remain forever young/as zeros and ones/locked in a binary cage?”  It’s bizarre passages like that which add that extra bit of flavor and even brings to mind 1960s outsider musician Alexander “Skip” Spence, the “American Syd Barrett”, though things never get nearly that demented or removed. This is a strong set of modern folk tunes played by musicians with heart and enthusiasm.