Jojo Hermann

Despite the fact that his name sounds like a character out of a Kids in the Hall skit about a Ferris wheel operator, Jojo Hermann turns in an impressively sophisticated album. Sounding like a backwoods combination of Dale from King of the Hill and Tom Petty, Defector fuses a rich texture of country rock to electric blues. Ultimately, the album comes off as a lighter, yet inferior version of Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. If Deliverance were a comedy, this would be the soundtrack.