Blood Harmonies have a deep tradition in Country and Gospel music. Pop music careers, both real and manufactured, have been built around the blending of voices belonging to blood relatives. Sweet background vocals aren’t all the Low Water Bridge Band offers on Honky Tonk Process, the third studio record for the band from Clarke County, Virginia released on August 1. Brothers, Alex and Riley Kerns, on bass and drums, respectively, both anchor the band’s rhythm section and provide that satisfying extra layer of voices. They also contribute individual and shared song writing credits to the band's catalog. Singer Logan Moore adds guitar to James “Chainsaw” Montgomery’s lead. The band earned its country cred with the instrumental work of Justin Carver on steel and banjo and Rudy Beel on fiddle.

There is no doubt that LWBB is a country outfit. They’re proud of their Shenandoah Valley roots and the music reflects the history of the land and its people. Appalachia has many distinct regions and this part of the state in the upper Valley just east of Winchester (the band calls Berryville home) shares much of the same topography as the rest of the state along the I-81 corridor.

The band released their debut record Midnight in Virginia in 2021 and followed up with Back to the Valley in 2023. Four singles have already been released from the new album and the highlight has been “Drinkin’ About You” the duet with Taylor Hunnicutt, the “Queen of Alabama.” As the title suggests, it’s a straight-ahead drinkin’ song, but there is always an effect when you bring in a woman. Moore says it “changed everything. Her voice added this raw, soulful edge-like suddenly the song wasn’t just one person lost in the moment, but two. It turned into a conversation, a shared kind of heartbreak.” The title track is a pedal steel-driven love song to every honky-tonk dive bar on a Saturday night. The irony of “I’ll Never Write a Song for You” is, of course, a song written for that person. Riley Kerns says his concept of the tune comes from a woman wanting her incarcerated man to write songs for her to keep her on his mind, but he knows that she is unfaithful. The beauty of the song is the full harmonies throughout; the LWBB really shows off their vocals with this one! “Trust the Dark” is the final pre-release single and shows a more contemporary side of the band.

Among the treasures to discover within the rest of the tracks on Honky Tonk Process are a song about one special place in West Virginia that inspired two different writers (“Trippin In the Trees”), a song declaring the joy of sudden independence that the listener doesn’t believe for too many verses, but the singer believes fervently (“Living Alone”), and a banjo-led toe-tapper about life on the road that is pure Country (“Trouble at Home”). The entire album is packed full of talented picking and beautiful singing. Those harmonies can’t be overlooked but the band uses them without building the entire sound of the band around it. LWBB draws its strength from the sum of its parts and has developed a sound all its own.

With tracks from three albums now inwhich to draw, the Low Water Bridge Band can continue to grow their audience from the familiar venues along the East coast and Southeast to the country music fans in the Midwest and the Red Dirt fans of Oklahoma and Texas. They’re in for a treat!

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