Album Review – The Moran Tripp Band’s “Jumpers Hole”

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#562 (Southern Rock) and #573 (Country Blues) on the Country DDS.

If you’re looking for a little change of pace from the standard three chords and the truth, and want something a little more greasy and sweaty that’s not afraid to stretch a song out a little bit and lay down in a groove, this local band that deserves a national audience out of Maryland might just fit the bill. They call themselves a rock and roll band, but they’re bursting with country blues, Southern textures, and even some straight up country songs that will fit right in with your sensibilities.

Moran Tripp isn’t one dude. It’s a combination of lead vocalist and guitar player Ryan Moran, and lead guitarist Shane Tripp. They bonded in a local watering hole over their shared love of bands like The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and The Grateful Dead. Then after enticing a few of their other local musician friends to join, The Moran Tripp Band was born.

Don’t worry if you’re not particularly inclined to go down the rabbit hole of a jam band. For their second album in as many years, The Moran Tripp Band respects the studio space and records 11 songs that are sensible, but still encapsulate their untethered but rootsy sound. Though you can tell some of these songs might get stretched out live, they don’t task the audience to endure this in studio recordings that commonly fail to confer the magic and energy of a live jam session.

The title track of their new album Jumpers Hole and the later song “Alright” have that Southern guitar tone to them that’s immediately infectious and inviting. No different than many of the old classic rock bands, this is a blues band at the root, even if the chord structures are a bit more loose, and the textures more country. This is illustrated best in the excellent Allman-inspired track “Heavy Is The Load.”

Then you get to the song “Ballad of a Bullet,” and all of a sudden they present a singer/songwriter aspect, with the only complaint being that the song seems too short. When you get to “There Ain’t No Road” featuring Daphne Eckman also from Maryland, you realize you’re listening to a straight up country song complete with steel guitar. This leads into “Country Mama,” which is a bluegrass/string band track that the folks in the Baltimore and D.C. bluegrass scenes would be impressed with.

Jumpers Hole is just a good listening record straight through the track list. Perhaps the songwriting never gets too involved, but each track finds that perfect balance of feeling both fresh and interesting, but still immediately familiar and appealing to the ear.

The Moran Tripp Band is simply a local outfit that plays regularly at Madams Organ in Washington, D.C., and then performs regionally wherever they can. They say this album is a love letter to their band house in Severna Park. The local aspect of Moran Tripp means there’s no pretentiousness here or some agenda at world conquest. It’s just good music.

8.1/10

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