PopMatters calls Nathan O'Flynn-Pruitt's debut album "a deeply intimate listening experience"

The Primitive Passion of Nathan O’Flynn-Pruitt  

Nathan O’Flynn-Pruitt will often let his guitar do the talking for long stretches, establishing moods that are sometimes reflective and frequently somber.

By Chris Ingalls / 25 June 2025

A dozen years ago, Nathan O’Flynn-Pruitt was touring with Chicago street music legend Little Howlin’ Wolf and began to lose confidence in the guitar feedback projects he was working on, so he pulled up stakes and moved to rural Humboldt County, California. Without an experimental scene to speak of, O’Flynn-Pruitt began concentrating on acoustic guitar and vocals, re-learning how to sing and eventually releasing his debut album on Lily Wen’s Figure & Ground label. The primitivist leanings of Songs From Behind a Mountain are often disarmingly raw, making the record a deeply intimate listening experience. The album is a rich tapestry of rough edges.

“People who hate losers and never played a game in this life,” O’Flynn-Pruitt sings on the opening song, “Great Big World”. “Never took a risk so never found themselves behind.” The song’s all-or-nothing lyrics mesh with his world-weary voice, which teeters somewhere between Paul Westerberg and Tom Waits. There’s pain and life experience in these vocals, and the guitar playing features rough chord strumming and thorny fingerpicking, characteristics that permeate the entire record.

O’Flynn-Pruitt will often let his guitar do the talking for long stretches, establishing moods that are sometimes reflective and frequently somber. “Path and Time” sees him taking a slow, deliberate approach before launching into haunting descriptions of childhood memories and how the late-night sky brings them on: “Dog I killed by mistake as a kid / Led our way down this gravel road that led us here.”

“Guidance” is the longest track and its sole instrumental, proving that O’Flynn-Pruitt’s introspective, evocative guitar playing stands perfectly well on its own. The track is a gorgeous, fragile piece, with chunks of primitivism, offset by dazzling, almost hallucinatory fretwork. While an entirely instrumental album of this sort would certainly be welcome, O’Flynn-Pruitt’s lyrics are a revelation, raw and emotional throughout.

Read the full review at popmatters.com.