“Is it just that no one’s listening / In this bleeding sea of humanity that screams like hell.” With these words—the very first dispatch on the opening track of this, his debut album—Eric Miller introduces himself to his listening audience. As you’re holding this now in hand, you may count yourself in that select and lucky number, though surely that number will multiply as word spreads about the young yet already mature talent showcased on this recording. Just as surely, that growing audience will counter the resignation voiced in the songwriter’s opening question by dint of continued engagement with the work; many of us will indeed be listening to this emerging artist, and that attention shall find rich reward in the 12 tracks assembled here. Despite the wry deflection in the album’s title, there is certainly something for us here, and it is something grand.

There is something of what the critic Greil Marcus called the “Old, Weird America”—that musical terrain of country, blues, and folk music connectin