The second release from Saltgrass, These Days, features eleven original songs by singer/songwriter Max Rollo. The album has a sound that ranges from bare bones rock (Peel Me Off The Wall, Second Chance) to weeping pedal steel-laden country shuffles (Life Without You). Lyrically, the album travels the winding roads of America, allowing the listener a peek into the rooms of lonely, crumbling motels (Life Without You), the empty, cavernous factories of yesteryear (American Dream) and into the eyes of wayward lovers (Stole).

Produced by Jeffrey Reed (Blue Mountain/Alex Clinton/Rocket From the Crypt), These Days showcases Rollo's penchant for writing arresting and vivid portraits of loss, desperation and, sometimes, redemption. With hints of Steve Earle, R.E.M., Uncle Tupelo and even Teenage Fanclub, Rollo takes the solid songwriting of Saltgrass' debut, 1988's Halfway Down, and ups the ante, creating an album that reveres the past, as it looks towards the future.

Rollo (the only actual member of Saltgrass - he maintains a revolving door line-up), along with Reed, recruited members of the late, great, Oxford, MS band the Hilltops (Hank Sossaman), Blue Mountain (Frank Coutch, George Sheldon), Black Dog Record's the Merton's (Jason and Steve Simpson), college faves the Kudzu Kings (Brian Ledford), and Houston, TX band The Cinders (Chris Nine), to add rich texture to the songs on These Days. Touches of pedal steel, banjo, mandolin and dobro, as well as the usual guitars, bass and drums, wrap around Rollo's songs like a warm blanket on a winter morning.

There's an unabashed twang in Rollo's vocals on These Days. His comforting, plaintive drawl hangs onto each word, bending and stretching until one syllable words become three.

However expressive his vocals may be, It is Rollo's songwriting that ultimately shines on These Days. Rollo's work is, at times, dark and sad, but always beautifully written - poetic tales that possess intelligence not always seen in American rock and roll.