Nothing is lost on Cash Langdon. It’s something you can hear in the observational lyrics of his
last record, 2022’s Sinister Feeling; but on its follow-up, Dogs (out May 2 on Seasick Records),
you can also hear it in the camaraderie he cultivates playing live with his band Meadow Dust
(bassist Matt Whitson and drummer Reagan Bruce), a sonic energy that gives off the heat of his
native Birmingham. The trio’s fuzzy take on heavy country rock has a worn-in no-fussiness that
recalls Neil Young & Crazy Horse – nothing overthought, nothing understated. And like Young,
Langdon’s voice is simultaneously earnest and world-weary – but there’s a sense of humor, too,
and a resignation to keeping on (“Dogs,” “Magic Again”). Recorded at Portside Studios (the
former location of the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound) in just two days, engineer Brad Timko
(Dan Sartain, St. Paul and The Broken Bones) captured Langdon and Meadow Dust at their
fiercest yet.
The title track “Dogs” and side B heater “Dead Dogs” both take inspiration from the wild dogs
Langdon encountered in his neighborhood at the time of writing the record, where he wondered
about the sick twist of fate that renders one dog a pet and another a threat. Across songs, he
examines how oppressive cycles overlap, intersecting the personal and the societal at all times.
The heavy yet melodic “Lilac Whiskey Noise” is the heartbeat of the record, written following
an active shooter event that Langdon witnessed at work in 2016. It’s an indictment – not of the
perpetrator – but of the systems of power that enable such an act. He sings of the shooter as not
so different from those wild dogs in his neighborhood, as someone who’s in need of more
resources and support than they’ve been afforded. The song is wildly catchy, an anthem anyone
can sing along and relate to.
It’s a microcosm for all of the themes on the album, too: the ongoing violence of simply being
awake to the world around you, and the resolve to stay awake anyway. On the crunchy
album-closer “Nothing’s Good Anymore,” Langdon sings about overhearing someone say just
that – and you can tell he’s tempted to agree. However, as I mentioned before, nothing is lost on
him. He’s going to find what kernel of beauty he can. Dogs is a sonic map for finding that beauty
everywhere and in just about anything.