S.G. Goodman – Planting by the Signs (2025) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

S.G. Goodman – Planting by the Signs (2025)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:07 minutes | 925 MB | Genre: Folk Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Slough Water Records

S.G. Goodman returns from the Western Kentucky bottomland with her latest full-length album, Planting by the Signs, available June 20, 2025 on her very own Slough Water Records via Thirty Tigers. Composed of songs inspired by love, loss, reconciliation, and the aforementioned ancient practice – how planting a garden, or weaning a baby, or getting a haircut are best timed in accordance with the cycle of the moon. A concept diametrically opposed to the tech-obsessed, profit margin-driven mania swirling around us. Through exploring themes related to planting by the signs, Goodman hopes to help herself and others reconcile this jarring disconnect, as well to pass along the story of the practice.

Eleven tracks highlighted by the critically-acclaimed and award-winning artist’s singular voice and her penchant for juxtaposing vulnerable folk music with punchy rock ‘n roll, replete with chiming guitars, ethereal atmospherics, and her DIY ethos. Goodman provides a timely reminder that the only way forward is together, and that we must always take into account humanity’s dependence on and responsibility to the natural world.It’s already easy to imagine S.G. Goodman’s third album feeling like a classic 20 years from now. You can practically hear the energy sparking off Planting by the Signs—the ones that mark this as a document of a musician assuredly hitting an elevated stride. The kind given off by Freakwater’s Old Paint and Lucinda Williams’ Sweet Old World, two albums that, with their wonderfully raw quality, feel like ancestors of Planting by the Signs. Goodman herself has cited Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks as influences, and you can hear both in the excellent “Fire Sign,” a song that sounds straight from some otherworldly disco where pitch-dark Americana and swaggering rock ‘n’ roll co-exist. And, like her fellow Kentuckian Tyler Childers (who memorably covered her great song “Space and Time”), Goodman draws from the Christian hymns of her rural childhood and has called them “more influential to me than anybody out there, just in their melodies.” You can hear it in the tender “Solitaire,” which references “In the Sweet By and By,” and the lighthearted rapturousness of “I’m in Love”—about how love can turn your life upside down—but it’s not all moonbeams and rainbows. “I’ve been crying at commercials on the hotel television set/ I’ve been lying on my taxes, writing off the things that I ain’t bought yet/ RSVPed to invitations knowing in my heart that I’ll never show,” Goodman sings, her twang rocky with gravel even when she hits the songbird notes. She sometimes applies a mischievous lilt, as on “I Can See the Devil,” a soulful blues rascal with a fakeout ending and Beck’s Mellow Gold vibe (across the board, Matt Pence’s drumming is stalwart). Restless “Satellite,” meanwhile, makes you wonder what Lana Del Rey might sound like stripped of every artifice. Guitarist and producer Matthew Rowan joins Goodman for a gorgeous duet on the title track, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy applies a layer of worn velveteen to the harmonies of “Nature’s Child,” a cover of North Carolina musician Tyler Ladd’s song. It’s a beaut, but Goodman doesn’t need to rely on anyone else’s songwriting. The title of her third album nods to the old Southern way of living—be it planting a garden or weaning a baby—in accordance with the moon’s cycles. It proves rich fodder for the storyteller lyrics of “Snapping Turtle,” which uses a tale about rescuing a reptile from kids “beating the hell out of it” as a metaphor for escaping the constraints of a hardscrabble rural life. Eight-minute-long album closer “Heaven Song” finds the narrator setting out to look for heaven, picking up a hitchhiker named Love and asking her to ride shotgun because “I never cared much for love behind me or on the run.” – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:

1-1. S.G. Goodman – Satellite (03:42)
1-2. S.G. Goodman – Fire Sign (02:58)
1-3. S.G. Goodman – I Can See the Devil (03:18)
1-4. S.G. Goodman – Snapping Turtle (06:24)
1-5. S.G. Goodman – Michael Told Me (03:51)
1-6. S.G. Goodman – Solitaire (04:14)
1-7. S.G. Goodman – I’m in Love (03:42)
1-8. S.G. Goodman – Nature’s Child (03:52)
1-9. S.G. Goodman – Heat Lightning (03:22)
1-10. S.G. Goodman – Planting by the Signs (03:40)
1-11. S.G. Goodman – Heaven Song (08:59)

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