Lightweight Champion’s Valley is Resonant, Confident Alt-Country

Debut EPs are often raw gems - a bit of magic coated in a layer of inchoate roughness - but for a new band, Valley is remarkably self-assured. Across its five songs, Lightweight Champion exact alt-country with an air of orderliness; think a pair of boots freshly scuffed rather than worn in. The melodies are simple but compelling, the rhythm section is tight, and Gabriel Delayne’s versatile piano keys makes for a formidable secret weapon. Most of it is comfortingly well-trodden material, like the three-chord lamentation of “Underperforming” and the breezy “Winter Leaves.” Closer “Daisy” is the outlier, a milieu of synth and processed vocals that foreshadow an intriguing path for the band outside the familiar bar buzzers the band does so well here.

Frontman Aaron Spieldenner’s voice, pleasantly nasal and warm, is suitably tailored to the material. His lyrics pair surreal, circuitous metaphorical imagery with plainspoken wills and wishes, the type of writing that’s become a staple of alt-country. Far more often than not his lines roll naturally onto the ears like rain on a corrugated roof. This is especially true for “Cowboy,” the EP’s best track, on which Spieldenner’s rumination about days gone by summons an eerie parallel between cowboy living and the growing antiquity of band life. “Day in, day out/Who’s gonna pick up the slack around his town,” he sighs at its outset. Well, maybe these guys will.