Trent Miller’s second album Welcome To Inferno Valley was released by Bucketfull Of Brains last summer to considerable acclaim; the Daily Mirror welcomed him as a ‘kindred spirit’ to Gene Clark and Townes Van Zandt while Q Magazine praised a ‘darkly underground mix of… mournful blues and lonesome country’.

Two years previously it had been a surprise when from the young crew of London-based folkies playing small venues like the Easy Come, the Betsey, and the Gladstone, Trent was the first to get an album out. Cerberus, a collection of self-recorded songs mainly with just an acoustic guitar, harmonica, and unadorned voice, mesmerised with invocations of myth, magick, and Mississippi.

Cerberus was the three headed dog guarding the gates of Hades. Miller’s Cerberus came swathed in black with a Dore drawing, and the Hanged Man tarot card. With titles like ‘Hellbound Train’, ‘Hangman Shore’, and ‘Calvary Mountain’; these short songs, almost vignettes, were entrancing . The Italian-born Miller sang in his adopted language with a touching tentativeness which, as on the tender ‘Secret Fires’, resulted in a uniquely affecting experience for the sympathetic listener.

Cerberus has now been re-issued by Bucketfull Of Brains (BoB 112H) and is distributed by Proper.

What the reviewers said:

‘Calvary Mountain… what a song and superb album this most definitely is’
(3.5/5 – MAVERICK)

‘Music for dancing on a grave, a fine display of dark misery’
(7/10 – Lynne Pettinger, AMERICANA UK)

‘It is incredible how a music so dark can warm one’s heart’
(8/10 – Roberto Curti, BLOW UP)

‘Miller’s voice conjures a life lived at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and an unhealthy acquaintance with a draughty boxcar’
(Trevor Raggatt – ROCK N REEL)

‘Folk noir is definitely the new black rock and Trent Miller wears it well’
(Jamie Hailstone – BEARDED MAGAZINE)

‘Miller picks at the scabs of humanity and peers into the abyss of his tortured soul. Death and decay are never far away’
(7/10 – Christopher Nosnibor, WHISPERIN’ AND HOLLERIN’)

‘Trent Miller has produced an album of gothic country that legends like Willie Nelson and Steve Earle would be proud of’
(Neil Richardson – ROOM THIRTEEN)

‘With William Faulkner on the reading list, Miller isn’t here to send you skipping into the world on beams of light. This is dark Americana tales about bad stuff’
(Mike Davies – NETRHYTHMS)

‘This is music straight from the (blackened) heart of an old century – Edgar Allen Poetics, if you will – that will prevail long after the man that made it is dust and bones’
(Mischa Pearlman – BACKLASH MAGAZINE)

‘He brings ‘Nebraska’ era Springsteen to mind’
(Mark Rowland – PENNYBLACK MUSIC)

‘An album that grows on you, and repays repeated listens’
(BACKROADS MUSIC)

‘Although you feel Miller hasn’t quite sold his soul at the crossroads, he may have temporarily loaned it’
(Allan Wilkinson – NORTHERN SKY)

‘The best of Trent’s work stands comparison with the best of renegade gothic-country and has the power to haunt your waking hours’
(David Kidman – FOLK AND ROOTS)

‘Trent channels Guy Kyser’s voice without sounding like a copy of Thin White Rope. His songwriting is wonderful and well worth the effort to hunt down’
(Michael L. Compton – THE TOP OF MY HEAD)

‘With a voice straight out of Hades, Trent Miller certainly lives up to his debut album’s title’
(Susan Darlington – MORNING STAR)

‘A Tarantino-esque take on Americana, a set of gothic country spirited songs that fall on our ears with the weight of gravestones and the melancholy of mourning’
(THE HEAR HORN)

‘His debut album is full of dark and doomy songs that will appeal to fans of bands such as The National’
(7/10 – Nigel Thornton, PETERBOROUGH EVENING TELEGRAPH)

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