Let’s get a few facts straight right off the bat. The name is Daughn Gibson - rhymes with Jaughn, or Raughn. He was born in Nazareth, PA, and currently resides in the sleepy college town of Carlisle, PA, where he frequents local watering holes like The Cave and Alibis. He’s 6’5”, 200 pounds, and has a head of thick, jet-black hair. He played drums in Pearls & Brass. Daughn was a trucker, sure, but he’s also packed boxes in an un-air conditioned warehouse, climbed up commercial broadcast towers with untested levels of radiation, worked at an adult bookstore, done sound at dive bars and collected unemployment checks. Daughn’s been around.

Daughn Gibson first entered the daydreams of the general public in 2012 with his acclaimed debut, All Hell. Armed with modern technology and a pile of thrift-store records, Daughn shook the ghosts out of scratchy Christian folk records and baptized them as fierce Americana with his booming baritone voice. His songs are as frequently tender as they are prurient, as hopeful as they are brimming with despair. He treats the past with respectful reverence while still being able to appreciate esoteric modern-day electronic music from across the pond. The only real starting point for the music of Daughn Gibson is Daughn Gibson.

It’s on Daughn’s second album and Sub Pop debut, Me Moan, that he truly reveals himself to the world. If All Hell was a gritty black-and-white movie, Me Moan is a widescreen IMAX 3D extravaganza. While the roots of All Hell’s sample-based music remain, these songs are performed live, lushly detailed and richly orchestrated. Live drums, guitars (by John Baizley of Baroness and Jim Elkington of Brokeback), pedal steel, horns, house strings, bagpipes and organs appear on this record, but never does it feel over-stuffed - every instrument or melody is perfectly in place. Me Moan isn’t just Daughn Gibson’s primal scream, it’s a skirmish through the full spectrum of emotion, unfiltered and impassioned.

Like Cormac McCarthy or Robert Altman, Daughn Gibson is a uniquely American artist who throws his soul into his work, free of compromise, possessed by unique vision and so damn intense that he constantly teeters on spontaneous combustion. It’s not out of line to consider Me Moan as his Blood Meridian; his Nashville. All that’s left is for you to let Daughn in.