This Is Somewhere (Ragged Company/ Hollywood Records) marks the coming of age of the young, Vermont-based rock band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. To say that this album makes good on the band’s immense promise would be an understatement. While these assertions quite naturally invite skepticism, we respond: “just insert and press 'play'.”
The album manifests incredible growth in the writing and singing of 24-year-old phenomenon Grace Potter, who has clearly found her true voice in both respects, as well as the instrumental prowess of the band: Potter on the Hammond B3, guitarist Scott Tournet, bassist Bryan Dondero and drummer Matt Burr. On this remarkable record, they make a glorious racket indeed.
The band’s timeless, organic brand of American rock & roll is fully in evidence throughout This Is Somewhere. Potter’s timely and eloquent songs—some of them intensely personal, others politically charged—immediately lodge themselves in the listener’s head (pretty much defining the de rigueur term “sticky”) and bore in deeper with each successive play.
This band has something else going for it — Potter’s innate star quality. As critic Jeff Davidson wrote last September in a piece posted on TMZ.com, “…she is easily the most glamorous star to rise from the jam scene, and her million-dollar smile makes her as desirable as any pop songstress. The fact that she’s amazingly talented…makes her even sexier.”
Potter and the Nocturnals grew from the roots of rock & roll in what some might call the old-fashioned way; For the first two years, Potter and the band teamed up with friends to run their “Ragged Company” label from her dad’s old sign shop, handling everything from CD graphics to booking the tours. In 2005 they joined forces with indie911 founder Justin Goldberg after reading his music industry book suggesting new artists should tour instead of look for record deals. The group turned down their first label offer and chose instead to sign on with booking agent Hank Sacks, now