Cat Clyde and Dean Johnson

Where is my love? Cat Clyde howls, opening her new album ‘Mud Blood Bone’ with abandon. Can’t find my love? It’s not the somber lament of a longing woman, but a feral eruption, the roar of an animal on the edge. Her voice crumples with dismay, a swampy croon over romping keys. I got a hole in my chest / I can’t take the emptiness / Where is my love? It’s the essential question of ‘Mud Blood Bone,’ a void eleven frenetic songs sizzle to fill.

With I Hope We Can Still Be Friends, his debut for Saddle Creek, Dean Johnson makes a pact with the listener: He will sing you his truth in the most heartfelt and charming way possible, if you promise to keep an open mind.