Kingsley Flood: Call Of The Wild

Enlarge Courtesy of the artist

Kingsley Flood's "I Don't Wanna Go Home" has a vintage radio feel and the momentum of a great live show.

Courtesy of the artist

Kingsley Flood's "I Don't Wanna Go Home" has a vintage radio feel and the momentum of a great live show.

Given the many faces of American music, it's convenient that Kingsley Flood can keep its label as an "Americana" band, even as its music has changed almost entirely from its debut album, Dust Windows, to its new single, "I Don't Wanna Go Home." The group's blues-oriented, fiddle-and-banjo-infused tunes have morphed into a larger, brighter, horn-inflected sound. Electric guitar wails through the middle, claps punctuate the beat and new mic placement does wonders for the lead vocals. As a result, the song has a vintage radio feel and the momentum of a great live show, raising the listener's heart rate to match the pounding drums.

The remaining folk elements are there in the songwriting — a tale of an everyday guy who can't let go of the idea of getting in his car and driving to freedom, even as his life is telling him to stay put. "Good boy Jack got his good boy wife / who hangs frames on the wall, makes him pecan pie / But the fires inside keep him up at night / screaming, 'If you're dreaming then you gotta get going, get gone.' " Even as his '96 Crown Vic crumbles to pieces around him, he just can't help himself.