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The Kentucky Trust Fund delivers bold emotions and boundless fun on new album “Last Flight”

Kentucky Trust Fund Article Cover
The Kentucky Trust Fund is an americana/folk band from Sacramento, California, that’s just released their first official album Last Flight but has a reputation as a powerful live act since 2018. Their tracks stand as dynamic hybrids filled with alternative rock dynamics and weird folk textures, offering interesting turns and colourful melodies with incredible emotional delivery. As stated by the band themselves their songs “live somewhere between hope, heartbreak, and finding your voice in a mad world”, providing richness to their soundscape and keeping the listeners on their toes.

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All of this is already perfectly illustrated by the opener “I’m Coming Back”, a track that adds a prominent bass line alongside acoustic instruments inspired by latin guitars and percussion. Its lyrics touch on finding one’s own inner strenght, also establishing The Kentucky Trust Fund as remarkable storytellers. Across the eleven tracks that make up Last Flight, we see the band trying out different things and inspirations that range from Fleetwood Mac (“Hole in Her Pocket”) to Sufjan Stevens (“Volunteer”).

We have three different songwriters in the band, including myself (Bill Craig), Sarah, and Mike. I wrote the title track The Last Flight Out of Saigon. At the time I first started writing the song, I had the idea of using the image of the last helicopter flight out of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in my head. Ultimately, I turned it into a metaphor about someone very close to me. The idea was centered around how trauma can affect a relationship. In this case, it’s about the pain you feel when watching someone, you’re trying to process their own trauma, and being unable to escape the daily reminders of it. So, I started with the idea of the last flight out of Saigon and eventually imagined a person who is so traumatized by their childhood that it’s very difficult for them to escape that war-torn city in their brain.

It’s a tasteful record that always seem to make the best of whatever context it decided to explore with each track, revealing itself as a diverse and immersive experience. On Last Flight the group adds their own touch on classic dynamics like waltzes and ballads that make everything feel elevated and enriched by their creativity. The Kentucky Trust Fund isn’t afraid of letting themselves be big and bold, crafting bright atmospheres that feel alive and breathing at every step – as heard on highlight “The Last Flight Out of Saigon”.

Kentucky Trust Fund press photo
“There are 5 members – singer/guitarist Sarah Houck, singer/guitarist Mike Martin, mandolinist Scott Sanders, bassist Steve Craig, and me (Bill Craig) on drums. We’ve been together almost 8 years now and this is our first album. Fun fact: Scott and Sarah met each other through the band, started dating and eventually got married a couple of years ago. Sarah studied jazz vocals in college, and Scott it was a classical guitar major.“

The track impresses with a The Thermals-like pacing and remarkable serenity as it builds itself through folk rock textures and impeccable harmonies. It’s a breathtaking song that effortlessly captures The Kentucky Trust Fund’s energetic live performances in a studio setting. They are first and foremost storytellers, so Last Flight feels like a compilation of short stories instead of a traditional album. This simple detail adds a lot to the experience, leaving you eagerly waiting for the next line to find out where the story is going. In the hands of other bands, this may have felt formulaic, but it never stops being fun on Last Flight.

“One of the little-talked-about things with severe trauma is that the person who has experienced it can have an effect on those around them. People with trauma can be at times very distant with those who love them, though it’s not by choice typically. In my case, loving someone who carries a lot of deep-seated pain is a source of significant self-doubt. When the person you love becomes distant or grows in ways you don’t fully understand, you wonder sometimes whether it’s your own fault.” 

That may be the best way of describing the record, fun. Even at their most emotional and heartfelt ballads, like “It’s Not Okay”, the weight of the lyrics is balanced by refreshing twists that bring a sense of newness to them. Last Flight stands as quite an achievement of melody, lyrics and composition, and the band’s internal chemistry is definitely the centrefold of the album – they’ve been playing together for nearly a decade and it shows. The Kentucky Trust Fund created their own populated universe that feels sharp, incredibly well built and deeply emotional without ever losing its sense of humor.

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You can find it in the following Playlists: Less Than 1,000 Followers, Fresh Singles, Indie Only, 12 New Songs This Week, and Unknown but Essentials!

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