Is Ben Ballinger a real American Troubadour? After landing in the Austin, Texas scene a few years back, he already stands out among the pack of would-be Country soulmen with an undeniably genuine Northwest brogue and the kind of hardscrabble lyrical chops that can only come from experience, solitude and struggle. You can hear it on any track—the high desert of the mind and the pensive melancholy of his rugged frontier hometown (the Dalles, Oregon).Like a troubadour, Ben Ballinger makes roots music with emotional depth—mining a lifetime worth of triumph and disappointment and discovery—panning through the spiritual silt to come up with a few golden truths worth showing around.Ballinger’s lyrics betray a certain outlaw pathos, the kind of shifty confidence that lets a man make mysticism from desolation and hopefulness.Ballinger comes off as a balladeer’s craftsman, building fine-tuned melodies from roughhewn passions. He may not know what the problem is, but he knows the fix—another from-the-hip melodic twist, another gut-wrenching insight, and one more late-night barroom sing-along for our lives. This is it, the sound of that magical thing happening out there just over the next hill's horizon, all over this bawdy country every Saturday night. Of course, there’s love. Of course, there’s loss. There are generations of learning the hard way and perfect moments and indignation, and many episodes only alluded to—but every bit of it is Ben Ballinger. Listen to a whole album. There’s a story within the grooves, personal stories, like the epic lies we tell ourselves to carry on.You can hear that tenacity in his voice, but what’s goin’ on in that head of his? Is it romance? Is it sentimentality? What makes him so damn right about how wrong he’s been?Ballinger pulls off a stunt all troubadours shoot for—he makes hope sound painful, and pain sound hopeful. He tells us his story, while convincing us it’s ours.