Hillfolk Noir

“You guys sound like Johnny Cash on Robitussin.” — Ryan, Pengilly’s Saloon bartender - His Bad Self

“I like this very much.” — Ricky Ross - BBC Radio Scotland (UK)

“Skinny Mammy’s Revenge is a great example of superb Americana music that will put any listener in a good mood.” - The Next Bar Stool

“Skinny Mammy’s Revenge is a great example of superb Americana music that will put any listener in a good mood.” - The Next Bar Stool

“Full of music of character.” - Drive 105 (UK)

“A fine showcase of the music of real America.” - Bluesbunny (UK)

“As soon as you hear it, you are there with them, in that circle of musicians, hearing up-close their great songs, the heartfelt stories ... a roots classic without doubt.” - House of Mercy (UK)

“Modern-day old-time wonderment.” - Roots and Fusion Radio (UK)

“Modern-day old-time wonderment.” - Roots and Fusion Radio (UK)

“[The] drive to celebrate the past and indeed to achieve a degree of authenticity continues to this day with several fine artists ... digging deep into the backwaters of American traditional music and bringing it bang up to date. Hillfolk Noir ... are a particularly fine example of how to go about this.” - Blabber 'n' Smoke (UK)

“It’s raw and blatantly unpolished; the sort of music one can imagine being played in the backyard or on the doorstep. It’s the immediacy which is appealing.” - Marsh Towers (UK)

“It’s raw and blatantly unpolished; the sort of music one can imagine being played in the backyard or on the doorstep. It’s the immediacy which is appealing.” - Marsh Towers (UK)

“What sets them apart from Old Crow Medicine Show and their ilk is an insistence to not allow themselves to get ahead of the music; by not allowing for pop culture compromise throughout Skinny Mammy’s Revenge, Hillfolk Noir allows their largely unadorned music to stand on its own.” - Lonesome Road Review

“The band is more than just a string of genre-related adjectives; the sounds they create provide a haunting backdrop for the troubadour rantings of Ward.” - Beat City Radio

“The band is more than just a string of genre-related adjectives; the sounds they create provide a haunting backdrop for the troubadour rantings of Ward.” - Beat City Radio

“Brilliant, edgy punked-up acoustic hillbilly blues.” - American Roots UK

“If John Steinbeck owned a speakeasy, Hillfolk Noir would be the house band.” — John Doe (X, The Knitters) - His Bad Self

“The spirit of punk as well as the back porch informs this music’s underlying earthiness.” - Lonesome Highway (UK)

“The spirit of punk as well as the back porch informs this music’s underlying earthiness.” - Lonesome Highway (UK)

“Hillfolk Noir plays dark, rural folk music that might one moment embrace praising the lord while loading your Winchester, and the next moment flirt with drinking sour mash from a jagged mason jar while the devil looks over your shoulder.” - SSG Music

“Hillfolk Noir have fine-tuned their dark, Depression-era jangly blues to become one of the most incredible bands in [Boise]. They are as honest as they come.” - Seattle Weekly

“Hillfolk Noir have fine-tuned their dark, Depression-era jangly blues to become one of the most incredible bands in [Boise]. They are as honest as they come.” - Seattle Weekly

“[Ward is] pulling off the most difficult of musical tasks — making an old style fresh, allowing you to experience the delta blues, Midwest folk, protest songs and countrified ballads in an engaging new manner.” - Boise Journal

“Washboard rhythms, heavy guitar, melancholy banjo and the dark profundity of a stand-up bass give Hillfolk Noir’s music a foot-stompin’, two-steppin’ vibe, but their inky, folky sounds reverberate with creepy things hiding in forest shadows.”
- Boise Weekly

"Country rock, then more folksy, then something that sounds like Tom Waits, and then something that could have come out of late-'60s San Francisco." - Tape Op

“Too authentic to be considered alt anything. Ward is an evocative, charismatic singer-songwriter who embraces diverse shards of Americana. Time-warped kaleidoscopes —sparse, historically reverent and pretty terrific.” - Idaho Statesman

"Whether it's the tolling bells of deathbed fevers, the loping swagger of a stranger in town walking down Main Street as every gunslinger in town stops and stares, or the wagon trains of woe rolling past desolate, arid, landscapes on a breeze of radiation, Ward and his Hillfolkers flow through the last wisps of a world gone very wrong for the protagonist with crooked, receding grins at reapers grim and eager as they transcend the alt.country hokum with a full-tilt-off-kilter medicine show of captivating enchantment that should diffuse beyond the canyons, badlands and sad-swaying hillsides of Idaho." - Maverick Magazine