"Alt.country rascals Roadside Graves got heavy meta with a jam about "dirt on my lip and blood in my eye" after the singer split his face open with his mic and bled everywhere. I should have taken video because I can't find anything that comes close to the level of musicianship these tatted-up guys guys now display."

"Roadside Graves are a special band, amazingly living up to their metal-sounding name (checkout the bloody face the lead singer suffered from headbanging a cymbal) while surpassing the confines of "Americana" with honest, good, God-damn countrified rock and roll. A shot of bourbon with a bottle of Budweiser in some shitty bar where Roadside Graves are playing is pretty much my idea of a great time."

"With My Son's Home, Roadside Graves have delivered a sprawling and amazing record that will (most likely) be ranked among the year's best by more than a few critics."

"With a name like the Roadside Graves, you'd think this country-rock seven-piece with New Jersey roots would be a somber crew, gravitating more towards Nebraska's murder ballads than the fired-up anthems of Born to Run. As it happens, their growing songbook encompasses both bittersweet narrative numbers (at times Dylan-esque) that tilt toward folk, and more up-and-at-'em efforts with pounding ivorie s, locomotive drums and guitar, and accordion to spare. Fans of Josh Ritter or early Wilco should find plenty to love... they're hashing out their own dusty visions of America - rousing, perambulatory, but with a macabre underside."

"The Roadside Graves turn in a sprawling collection of narrative-rich songs on their new album My Son's Home....an album that doesn't reinvent the wheel but explores familiar ground in a fresh way. Highly recommended, especially for fans of The Felice Brothers and Two Gallants."

"My Son's Home is well-stocked with stirring narratives and sketches that just happen to be almost unremittingly obsessed with the crypt. Yet what's really remarkable about the record is the band's ability to treat death from so many different perspectives and with such a widely divergent range of moods and sympathies.There are moments of haunting, fragile stillness here...Perhaps most admirably of all, the Roadside Graves excel at the brave and difficult paradox of suffusing death with life, injecting vivacity and humor into their reflections on mortality."

"The Roadside Graves combine folk, country and rock with timeless melodies, gorgeous harmonies and arresting songwriting along the lines of Dylan, Springsteen, The Grateful Dead, and The Band, while retaining an independent spirit of their own. Deceptively simple, hiding thoughtful themes and intelligent lyrics under a guise of catchy alt-country, My Son's Home layers acoustic guitar hooks and strums with boozy horns and piano until the entire band is moving as one."

"The band delivers the most sweeping sample of its musical diversity....what the Graves have done - what they've succeeded in doing - is convey our sense of experience, not to be the background music for it. And if you do work better with platitudes and road-trip analogies, then it's probably best to keep it short: The Roadside Graves have arrived."

"My Son's Home is the new record by the Roadside Graves and maybe my favorite record of the year thus far...if I were to ever make a record I would want it to sound exactly like My Son's Home...This is not a record that you are just going to sit down once and "get it," each listen unveils something new and thus the appreciation/love deepens. To these ears, its a damn near perfect record. Undoubtedly and strongly recommended!! Do it!"

"Like Dr. Dog, The Felice Brothers, Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, Creedence and Lobos, the Metuchen, New Jersey based band's 4th album is many things folk and rock, but it's much more than that - it's a collection of colorful razor sharp songwriting with Steinbeck-esque narratives that finds the band at their best ever....Roadside Graves are breathing creative fresh life in to broad genre of no depression rock."

"The production is electrifying from start to finish - at times the Graves sound like they’re blowing the roof off a crowded, smoky barroom and later like they're serenading the starry sky from a porch deep in the woods...every member contributes to give the record a truly communal, lived-in feel. My Son's Home does this consistently from start to finish, and in doing so becomes one of the best albums you'll hear this summer."

"The music takes left turns that many alt country bands would dutifully avoid, but still retains that dark, dusty dirt road feel that makes it seem so haunted and engaging....the entire album, is a mesmerizing journey that finds a top notch band hitting their stride behind a captivating singer/songwriter and is one of the best albums in its genre of the year"

"The Graves' seamless integration of guitars with electric piano and organ (courtesy of Mike DeBlasio's versatile Korg), along with Gleason's intense vocals (and the group's Jersey roots), often leads to comparisons to Springsteen, although the Band and the Grateful Dead hit the mark as well. What all those groups share, of course, is a dedication to timeless melodies, riveting harmonies and vivid, memorable songwriting. Yes, the Roadside Graves love America; now it's only a matter of time until America returns the favor."

"Get prepared to be hearin' a lot more about NJ's The Roadside Graves in the next several months. The gritty Americana inspired 7 piece will be dropping their new disc, an 18 song epic called, My Son's Home... From the previews that we've heard it sounds like it well may deserve the building hype."

"This album is brimming with alt-country genius from beginning to end.Each song is unique in sound with exceptional lyrics that strike you between the eyes...I could rattle off amazing tune after amazing tune which would make this review about 2,000 words long but instead I will just urge you to purchase this brilliant album."

"...the boys are gearing up to release their newest effort, My Son's Home, which does everything you want. Drawing on the best elements of No One..., My Son's Home is charged with alt. country-influenced group choruses, vamped-up guitar, beautiful piano lines and of course, the signature scratchy vocals of John Gleason."

Any fan of good Americana music should keep an eye out for My Son's Home. It will undoubtedly be a highlight of 2009.

Metuchen, New Jersey ex-patriots Roadside Graves are following up 2007's great (and greatly underappreciated) No One Will Know Where You've Been with the epic, amazing 18-track My Son's Home. It has narrative substance (like a door stopper-sized book) and just as many hooks, tons of heart. Or, in other words, and to carry the book metaphor way too far, this one's going to make a lot of noise when it drops.

Gleason and the band manage to make every jab of the needle feel just, and every artfully-turned phrase feel almost unbearably moving. If Townes van Zandt were still kicking, he'd love these guys. You're listening to the best band in New Jersey.

Almost Faulknerian in its ability to curse its subject and marvel at it in fascination simultaneously.

Perfectly illustrated stories, captured in song, that will make you laugh, cry, and want to drink one more than you probably should.

West Coast is an instantly memorable song, with a driving beat, excellent piano-guitar interplay, and an anthemic chorus. This song continues the outstanding songwriting from lead singer John Gleason, whose vivid and heartbreaking stories are always excellent, often unforgettable.

Deceptively simple, hiding mature themes and touching lyrics under a veneer of catchy alt-country; I daresay this stuff is as good as anything Ryan Adams ever gave us.

The bands synthesis of shuffling guitars, robust harmonies, and instrumental flourishes nod to artists like Dylan, Springsteen, and the Band, while retaining a free and fresh spirit simultaneously possess melodic shine and raucous energy.

Intelligent and full of soul...you will slowly fall in love with their gentle melodies, their country subtleties and warm and generous spirit.

Probably the best alt.country record I've heard this year.

Lyricist/vocalist John Gleason pens some of the prettiest and smartest lyrics this side of Matt Berninger (The National).

Performed with an uncommonly deft touch and subtle grace.

This Garden State septet's folky brand of rock - think Cat Stevens - belongs on Wes Anderson's next film soundtrack. Enough said.

...the Graves build their songs layer by layer, adding stinging guitar lines over strummed acoustics and boozy horns with barreling piano runs until the entire seven-piece band is dancing a country waltz in perfect step. By the time they run through the proggy Civil War march and barroom piano rolls of "Ruby," the EP's opener, you've been through at least five genres and a hundred years of musical history, and it all feels as seamless as the march of time itself.