long with city-mates The Denver Gentlemen and Woven
Hand, A Dog Paloma
preaches the old testament of American vernacular
music. Formed in 2002, Paloma brings together Fort
Collins musicians Joe Sampson and Erin Roberts, with
Denver scene veterans Chris Barker and Bill McConnell.
Real folk blues dovetails with an expansive sound that
reaches beyond the indie musings of standard
alt-country outfits. Then again, most of those bands
don’t have a trumpet player.

Singer/songwriter Sampson has the kind of 3:00am voice
that’s equal parts chain-smoke and liquid vicodin. The
enclosed EP displays a weariness that, thankfully,
does not inspire weariness in the listener, but
instills a welling sense of release. Laconic vocals
brush against guitars and banjos; simple melodies
belie a complex tension. In the world of Paloma,
cadence is a key instrument—weighed as heavy as the
strum of a weathered six-string.

—Bruce Laidlaw (Contributing writer to The Bloomsbury
Review)