Strand Of Oaks

Tim Showalter’s latest: “A hopeful reflection on love, loss and enlightenment.”

“They’re just songs/This should be fun,” someone tells Tim Showalter, AKA Strand Of Oaks, on Horses At Night, but he’s profoundly invested in In Heaven, another poignant reach for the stars. Part informed by the death of his wife’s mother in a car crash, his subsequent defeat of alcohol dependency, and the couple’s move from Philadelphia to Austin, Texas, the album channels big picture existentialism and the laser focus of grief into inspired, elemental songs spattered with the Crazy Horse leads of My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel. Along the way there are thematic nods to the late John Prine and narrative appearances by Jimi Hendrix, the latter a giggoing pal for Showalter’s late, much-loved cat in joyous elegy Jimi & Stan. It looks preposterous on paper, granted, but like so much of this instinctual, fully lived-in record, it touches and thrills.