Time to get on my soapbox and anoint the next big thing in independent folk music. It’sTopHouse, the Montana-migrating, Nashville-living, four-piece alternative folk group that’s bringing the energy to the all-too-sad folk crowd.
If you’ve heard me talk about them too much, that’s really unfortunate, but it’s time they got their flowers. The TopHouse experience is unique to every listener and it’s one that they themselves don’t even know how to describe with their website admitting they don’t know. Are they rock? Folk? Country? Irish? Who’s to say but the listener.
All in all, forming in Missoula, Montana in 2015 by William Cook and Jesse Davis, the current violinist and songwriter/guitarist/mandolin players respectively, they set out to make some music. They added Joe Larson as a lead singer and guitarist/banjoist in 2017 and after raking up local accolades in Missoula including a top 5 Best New Band appearance two years in a row, moved to Nashville to attain residency. Finally, after a number of releases including their first studio album (self-recorded and produced by the way), 2019’s Hopes and Fears, the group addedAndy LaFave on the keys to round out the now-quartet.
Their philosophy is ultimately authentic, true to themselves and not modified by pressure from labels or audience. Many songs like 2022’s single “Number One” and 2023’s “Good Hands” lie in a positive self-care mindset with the former about finding moments for self-care in a relationship and the latter about the comfort and support provided by friends and family. Some of their work relies on carefree attitudes and fun times. Their biggest song to date, “The MountainSong” is rich with sweeping harmony and foot-stomping goodness about partnership and facing life with your people. “Wine or the Weather” finds the singer ever wanting to change their partner, just growing used to who they are. And this doesn’t even include their earlier forays towards their Montana roots like wishing a partner to get over the speaker in “Leave Me inMontana” and a song about the Smith Mine Disaster, the largest mining disaster in Montana history (“In the Darkness”).
Even songs about falling in love (“Slow Down”), being a pirate (“The Ballad of Michael Light”),going to the airport (“Airport!”), or accepting growth (“Better is the End”) find their rhythm and style in the folk-rock mix with the dancier elements mixed in. Regardless of the subject matter,TopHouse songs stay entrenched in an encouraging guitar backbone with soaring violin melodies across songs and they do all of this with the help of just a bass drum, played by Jesse in live shows. Impressive for a group to create dance tracks without percussion.
In fact, TopHouse marketed their newest release, “I Don’t Wanna Move On”, as a folk song with an EDM-style beat drop. I’ll be honest with you: it works. I will concede, one has to be in a mindset to listen to TopHouse. I find it difficult to enjoy it as light and breezy music for a day; if I’m listening to TopHouse, I have to commit to it. Their songs are sweeping and cinematic in a way that missing a verse serves only to your detriment since you can’t ‘get the gist’, and it’s time to go back and restart the song. Thoughtful lyrics, optimistic melodies, and sometimes getting just a little goofy, TopHouse is the group to revitalize independent folk music and (I hope) reach the stratosphere by simply being themselves.
TopHouse played at the Thunderbird Music Hall in Pittsburgh on June 20, 2024. Their new US tour finds them around Morgantown in Charlottesville (March 7), Washington D.C. (March 8),Philadelphia (March 9), Buffalo (March 14), Columbus (March 28), and Pittsburgh (March 29).