Nate Amos, performing under the alias This Is Lorelei, has accumulated a following that, for the uninitiated, seems like an overnight success. In fact, Amos’s previous offering, Box For Buddy, Box For Star, is something of a sleeper hit for fans of the current wave of alt-country music. Alongside the accompanying covers album, which included MJ Lenderman, Snail Mail and Amos’s own parents, the songs undertook several iterations that extended their initial lifespan.
As a result, The Singer In My Band has been much anticipated. It’s difficult to listen to contemporary alternative music at the moment without hearing from the well of country-infused rock acts, largely from the 90s. Amos has the advantage of having played in a bluegrass band back in his home state of Vermont, so these influences are not a contrived effort to capture the zeitgeist. Tracks like ‘Angel’s Eye’ and ‘Where’s Your Love Now’ from his last effort were an expert display of those influences.
The Singer In My Band contains more singer-songwriter tracks than any of Amos’s releases, including Lorelei and Water From Your Eyes albums. Alongside the moments of storytelling that stand out in Box For Buddy, Amos retained an element of experimentation and playfulness which was cultivated during his time working as an engineer in a music studio. That has, by and large, been dropped in favour of ‘alt-country’ that is in fact not as alternative as it may seem at first.
Album opener ‘I Will Eat My Heart In The Morning Light’ is a showcase of Amos’s deeply personal approach to songwriting – at least, so it seems, as it’s notable that Amos never performs under his given name and is always part of a collective, or faux collective. In any case, the track takes influence from traditional country music and doo-wop whilst Amos uses his voice to sink into a deep Johnny Cash register.
‘Oh No Now My’ draws upon Elliott Smith, another figure who looms large over the alternative music of 2026, alongside a thundering staccato drumbeat that flirts with a heavier sound – in fact, it proves to be the heaviest song the album. This is followed by ‘Billy Came Back’, a modern look at the outlaw country sound. On the one hand leaning heavily into indie-rock, this track could also be mistaken for a Highwaymen track written in major chords or a pop ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. Amos has earned a place in the great American songwriter conversation with his recent efforts; although there is less of a literary influence than Dylan or Cohen, the lyrical prowess is outstanding, unequivocally American and you find yourself sucked into the narrative of the tracks as you would with any great roots record.
‘Watching Heaven Fall’ is a direct meeting between Amos’s bluegrass background and the year 2026. A pattern begins to emerge: despite the temptation to throw this Lorelei album into the alt-country bracket, its influences are not steeped only in the 1990s but in fact go back much further than that, tapping into Americana’s deeper roots. This track recalls Paul McCartney’s country influence on a track like ‘Rocky Raccoon’.
Those moments of more traditional roots rock permeate the entire record. Only two tracks truly differ from this approach which, it must be said, Amos masters. ‘The Kid With The Crown’ brings to mind The Replacements. It’s a strong rock song that lacks the heaviness of contemporaries MJ Lenderman or Wednesday. However, this album certainly matches and often surpasses those artists, and most others, in songwriting terms.
The LP ends on a lo-fi track, Don’t You Cry In Lonesomeness, that I could be convinced is an unpolished demo and is the only other track that would be out of place in the New Mexico desert. With only Amos and his guitar seeing the listener out of the door, I wonder if, in some way, it’s what Amos wanted the album to be all along. For all of the album’s many strengths, it is Amos’s relationship with his guitar and a pen and paper that truly makes the album and this artist special.
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