A longtime member of Los Angeles' roots-rock community, John Surge has spent countless nights onstage, filling the room with a blend of roadhouse country and amplified Americana. Between songs, snatches of unfiltered conversation from the audience will make their way to his ears. Almost Time, his second album as frontman of John Surge and the Haymakers, is filled with those barroom tales.

Recorded in Texas with producer Tommy Detamore, longtime collaborator Randy Volin, and a roster of Texas-based musicians, Almost Time trades the California country-rock twang of Surge's previous release, Your Wonderful Time, for an inspired blend of roadhouse roots music, barn-burning bluegrass, saloon-styled shuffle, and sharp songwriting. There's also a reimagined cover of "Big Train," originally recorded by Chip Kinman and Tony Kinman (of the pioneering cowpunk band Rank and File) and reborn here as a country-western classic featuring guest vocals from Chip Kinman himself. Surge remains a loyal resident of Southern California, but Almost Time widens his horizons, offering up a rootsy country sound that's informed not by the geography in which it was created, but by the songwriter himself.