Buzz

Reviews and Raves about Detour!

Radio Hill

Published November 8, 2007

“Detour mixes old-fashioned bluegrass energy with a lyrical groove”
Chris Rietz | For the Lansing State Journal

“It’s not 1938, and they’re not a pop-bluegrass hybrid like Newgrass Revival or Seldom Scene, nor are they neo-traditionalists like Blue Highway. Detour, Michigan’s newest, brightest bluegrass band, is a glimpse of the music’s fourth wave.  It’s a debut album that sparkles, not least because it lacks any of the breathless, we’ve-got-something-to-prove desperation the genre invites. While Detour can crank up the tempo – that version of “John Hardy” is there just to show they can blow the doors off when they want to – much of “Radio Hill” packs real, old-fashioned bluegrass energy into a more lyrical groove.

That’s because, despite that their three singers can really dish it and they’re all top-notch
instrumentalists, Detour is above all a song band. Mandolinist/singer Jeff Rose (Iowa Rose, High Canyon Ramblers) wrote fully eight of the album’s 15 tracks, a choice selection from his fabled deep catalog of original songs.

Traditionalists may grouse that Detour’s trio singing, while it attains that hard-voiced “buzz” that characterizes the old-time harmony, refrains from pushing at the high register. It’s “that mid-range, lonesome sound,” even though bassist Zak Bunce (Lake Effect, Rachael Davis), the best of a threesome of fine singers, can head into high atmosphere when he chooses.

Scott Zylstra, also the album’s recording engineer, has wisely sidestepped the fastest-gun-in-the-west school of bluegrass guitar, and his muted, woody tone is a model of  bluesy, smart phrasing.  Banjo picker Mike Sumner, 2001’s National Banjo Champion no less, wrote the album’s other original, “Winds of Winfield.” That meditative, minor-key tune is his compositional showcase; but listen to “John Hardy” – his first break is straight-out-of-the-book Scruggs style, the second is a wild leap into stratospheric, post-Tony Trischka chromaticism.

Alongside chestnuts like “Darling Corey” or “Handsome Molly” are some surprise covers: The Impressions’ “People Get Ready” to end the album, or the Youngbloods’ hippie anthem “Get Together,” which sounds here more like church than the Summer of Love.

MSU history prof Peter Knupfer has joined Detour since the album’s release this fall. Knupfer is a first-rate fiddler, and his addition will only improve the Detour arsenal – they may be the finest bluegrass band our state has yet produced.”

The Road That Lies Ahead

Published April 9, 2009
“Detour reinvents themselves for new ‘Road’ ahead”
Chris Rietz | For the Lansing State Journal

“Radio Hill,” the dazzling debut from Michigan’s bluegrass band Detour, hit the scene with such a resounding bang in 2007 that it almost created a problem: some bands disappear into a fog trying to outdo their first albums, never to emerge again.  But with their new release, the aptly titled “The Road That Lies Ahead,” Detour sidesteps that trap by reinventing themselves, in three critical ways.

The first is that two-time Winfield Banjo Champion Mike Sumner has departed for greener (or at least warmer) pastures in Nashville. He still appears on eight of the CD’s 12 tracks, but the others are covered by new Detour banjoist Kevin Gaugier, a fixture of the Lansing bluegrass scene for decades.

Secondly, “Road” is lit up from beginning to end with the fiddling of MSU history professor Peter Knupfer, a player with serious chops, and a real addition to Detour’s already formidable instrumental lineup.

Third – and most important – bassist Zak Bunce has quietly been promoted to lead singer. He and the other two core members – mandolinist Jeff Rose and guitarist/engineer Scott Zylstra – are all fine singers, but Bunce is the one who can really push hard at the high registers. That, and the hair-rising “buzz” that their three-part harmonies achieve up there in the atmosphere, catapult the Detour vocals to a new level.

Much like his sister Rachael Davis (Shout Sister Shout), Bunce is a singer with wide range and a seemingly bottomless reserve of vocal firepower. In a vehicle like the bluesy “Dear Brother” he may remind listeners of John Cowan, but with a mastery of bluegrass style that the Newgrass Revival icon could only dream of.

More than ever, though, Detour is a platform for Jeff Rose’s songs, and nine of the 12 tracks are Rose originals. Two of the others, “Sittin’ on Top of the World” and “Shady Grove,” are such overdone standards as to be negligible. Merle Travis’s “16 Tons” fares better, as Bunce dials down the tough-guy braggadocio and underscores the drama and melancholy of this coal-miner classic.

The original songs (and three nifty instrumentals) are of consistently high quality, but two may find themselves appearing other bands’ setlists: the chilling “Cold Stones” and the funny, self-referential “My Life Just Ain’t a Bluegrass Song.”