…a new North Shore Americana band playing twangy original music set in maritime New England.

The band features songwriting of Ipswich guitarist & fiddler Pierce Woodward, whose lyrical and melodic maneuvers have a way of entering in one ear and never emerging from the other.

Burke Sampson and Cal Joss add layers of introspection on telecaster, pedal steel, electric piano and mandolin, while Brian Hone and Mark Casella keep the songs pushing ever onward on upright bass and drums.

The band formed in 2024 to prepare Woodward’s latest solo release, Against the Strong Water, for a live show.

Previously Woodward toured as the bass player in folk-rock luminaries The Mammals and indie-folk trio The Jolly Bankers. Joss also plays with North Shore bands Caspian and Cables and Lines. Sampson recently parachuted back to the area after 15 years of mysterious musical activity in Baltimore, possibly in StarCrunches, almost certainly with the Brakemen and the Bellevederes. Hone’s upright stylings are a fixture in the North Shore jazz and folk scenes, and in an interesting twist, he also enjoys scoring Western films. Casella lays down both the boom-chick and the chicka-chang in Ipswich’s beloved roots cover band, Bottles & Cans, whose seven (!) members also include Joss and Woodward.