Get ready for Junkerdash…

Email: hillfolknoir@gmail.com


Press Quotes

Quotes that make us seem cool.

“Hillfolk Noir played electric and ruined Treefort the same way that Dylan ruined Newport.”
– County Jesus & the Extraterrestrial Highway (2023)
 “This is what Old Crow Medicine Show ought to be a bit more like”
– Country Music People Magazine (2017)

“Hillfolk Noir have achieved the holy grail of creative endeavor; they are totally unique.  Strange, good time music for strange times.”
– Acoustic Magazine (2017)

“A thrilling, haunting, stark collection of traditionally inspired Mountain-Hillbilly Music”
-2016 NO Depression
Full review – http://nodepression.com/album-review/thrilling-haunting-stark-collection-traditionally-inspired-mountain-hillbilly-music

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“They rocked their way to the top. Best band in Boise” – 2014 Boise Weekly
“The best news is Ward has the chops and commitment to be what he claims to be: A boanafide folk singer.”
-Doug Deloach, Maverick Magazine

“A unique inhabitation of trad mountainy music – an incandescent car crash of blues, medicine show sensibilities, country and rock ‘n’ roll” – Mary Ann Kennedy, BBC Radio 3

**”You’d be crazy to miss them”. – Paul Kerr, Blabber and Smoke
“A raggedy, rollicking adrenalin-shot of a trio” – Sarah Coxton, froots
“Incredible – a band who’s first album was brilliant have got better and better! Tremendous old time hillbilly music for the 21st century” – Mike Morrison, AmericanRootsUK
**”This is talent that is wrought by a love and knowledge of traditional American music, uncompromisingly raw and packed with dustbowl character.”
-Sarah Coxton, fRoots
“Hillfolk Noir are fucking awesome 5 stars…. that’ll do”- X ,Songs from the Shed, England
“Great!” – Iain Anderson, BBC Radio Scotland
“Both stellar releases. Hillfolk Noir is not only preserving an obscure and endangered niche of music, but the characteristic and contemporary subject matter that speckles each tune is enough to resurrect the lazy, weary ears of modern-day schlock. Perk up and get with the old times, baby!! It’s the future.” – Gregory Rawlins, singer/songwriter Oregon
“A beautiful blend of folk, country and rock ‘n’ roll with Depression-era inspired string band blues and hillbilly ideals” – The List
“They’re great!” – Frank Hennessy, BBC Radio Wales
“The jugband tradition is alive and more than well – they bring a punky, spunky spirit to the blues and old-time” – Rob Adams, The Herald (Scotland)
“The playing is tight and the atmosphere loose” – Dave Cowling, AmericanaUK

“This is roots music with attitude”
– R2 (Rock ‘n’ Reel) magazine

“Amazing, and slightly dark – I can’t wait to see them onstage”
– Bob Harris, BBC Radio 2

“If John Steinbeck owned a speakeasy, Hillfolk Noir would be the house band.”
— John Doe (X, The Knitters)

“Too authentic to be considered alt anything. Ward is an evocative, charismatic singer-songwriter who embraces diverse shards of Americana. Time-warped kaleidoscopes —sparse, historically reverent and pretty terrific.”— Michael Deeds, Idaho Statesman

 “Hillfolk Noir have fine-tuned their dark, Depression-era jangly blues to become one of the most incredible bands in [Boise]. They are as honest as they come.”
— Seattle Weekly

 “Hillfolk Noir plays dark, rural folk music that might one moment embrace praising the lord while loading your Winchester, and the next moment flirt with drinking sour mash from a jagged mason jar while the devil looks over your shoulder.”
— SSG Music

 “The spirit of punk as well as the back porch informs this music’s underlying earthiness.”
— Lonesome Highway (Ireland)

 “Brilliant, edgy punked-up acoustic hillbilly blues.”
— American Roots UK
 “[Ward is] pulling off the most difficult of musical tasks — making an old style fresh, allowing you to experience the delta blues, Midwest folk, protest songs and countrified ballads in an engaging new manner.”
— Boise Journal
 “Washboard rhythms, heavy guitar, melancholy banjo and the dark profundity of a stand-up bass give Hillfolk Noir’s music a foot-stompin’, two-steppin’ vibe, but their inky, folky sounds reverberate with creepy things hiding in forest shadows.”
— Amy Atkins, Boise Weekly
 “The band is more than just a string of genre-related adjectives; the sounds they create provide a haunting backdrop for the troubadour rantings of Ward.”
— Beat City Radio
 “What sets them apart from Old Crow Medicine Show and their ilk is an insistence to not allow themselves to get ahead of the music; by not allowing for pop culture compromise throughout Skinny Mammy’s Revenge, Hillfolk Noir allows their largely unadorned music to stand on its own.” — The Lonesome Road Review

“It’s raw and blatantly unpolished; the sort of music one can imagine being played in the backyard or on the doorstep. It’s the immediacy which is appealing.”
— Marsh Towers (UK)

 “Whether it’s the tolling bells of deathbed fevers, the loping swagger of a stranger in town walking down Main Street as every gunslinger in town stops and stares, or the wagon trains of woe rolling past desolate, arid, landscapes on a breeze of radiation, Ward and his Hillfolkers flow through the last wisps of a world gone very wrong for the protagonist with crooked, receding grins at reapers grim and eager as they transcend the alt.country hokum with a full-tilt-off-kilter medicine show of captivating enchantment that should diffuse beyond the canyons, badlands and sad-swaying hillsides of Idaho.”
— Maverick Magazine

“[The] drive to celebrate the past and indeed to achieve a degree of authenticity continues to this day with several fine artists … digging deep into the backwaters of American traditional music and bringing it bang up to date. Hillfolk Noir … are a particularly fine example of how to go about this.” — Blabber ‘n’ Smoke (UK)
 “As soon as you hear it, you are there with them, in that circle of musicians, hearing up-close their great songs, the heartfelt stories … a roots classic without doubt.”
— House of Mercy (UK)

“Modern-day old-time wonderment.” — Roots and Fusion Radio (UK)

“A fine showcase of the music of real America.” — Bluesbunny (UK)
 “Full of music of character.” — Dessie Fisher, Drive 105 (UK)
Skinny Mammy’s Revenge is a great example of superb Americana music that will put any listener in a good mood.”
— The Next Bar Stool
“Country rock, then more folksy, then something that sounds like Tom Waits, and then something that could have come out of late-’60s San Francisco.” -Tape Op
“I like this very much.” — Ricky Ross, BBC Radio Scotland (UK)
 “You guys sound like Johnny Cash on Robitussin.”— Ryan Wissinger, ex- Pengilly’s Saloon bartender and musician.

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