Full-time enrollment as drummer in his brother’s contemporary folk outfit (the up-and-coming Mammals, currently on tour with Arlo Guthrie), has not kept Chris Merenda  from recording and releasing a follow-up to his 2003 solo debut, “The Regimen.” While Merenda’s first effort was a genre-jumping affair, with a rather motley grouping of songs held together by power of his brash J. Mascis-inspired yowl, “Hello Freedom” proves the songwriter is beginning to land. The album’s decidedly folksy underpinning suggests that Merenda’s recent immersion in the traditional-minded music of The Mammals is having an effect on his own songwriting (for example, he’s added banjo to his repertoire, playing it on half the songs). Further underscoring this point are fellow Mammals Michael Merenda, Dan Rose, Ruth Ungar and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger who, with fiddle, upright bass, acoustic guitar and more banjo, make cameos throughout “Hello Freedom.” Though in many ways Merenda seems to have mellowed, he’s not lost his ironic sense of humor (see “Sally Two-Step”) or his caustic delivery. Like previous records “Hello Freedom” was co-produced and recorded by local heavyweight Duncan Watt, with additional electric guitar licks provided by The Screen’s Bob Beal.   Catch Chris and Mike Merenda, along with Robert Blake, at The Red Door on Monday, Nov. 21.

Mainesqueeze’s debut album, “Long Way Home,” had been 18 long years in the making. Roots-revivalists Sammie Haynes, Doug Bennett and Bruce Derr founded the band way back in the 1980s (before the term “Americana” was commonplace) and went through a number of lineup chances along the way. It wasn’t until recently— with the addition of bassist Jon Booth and drummer Jamie Decato—that the band’s cast was solidified and plans were made to record (Honorary Squeeze Kent Allyn joins the band on keyboards for the album.) On “Long Way Home” the band lends its voice to a dozen classic, or soon-to-be-classic tunes pulled from disparate pages of the American songbook, including Bob Wills’ Texas swing hit, “San Antonio Rose,” Tom Waits’ “Long Way Home,” and the recent novel Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie collaboration, “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key.” 

Send your new CD to The Wire, 10 Vaughan Mall, Suite 1, Portsmouth, NH 03801.
Send any other music news to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Operators are standing by.