Federale, the gently psychedelic country ensemble led by Brian Jonestown Massacre member Collin Hegna, has spent the better part of 15 years carving out a pleasant niche in the music scene of Portland and beyond. It’s a fantasy world where spaghetti Westerns play nonstop in a dusty drive-in theater and Lee Hazlewooad is still holding court in a LA recording studio. What Federale does, it does very well. The group’s fifth studio album No Justice bears that out with 10 songs that hew to a formula of ’60s film music and the tanked spirit of outlaw country. They get every last detail right: rubbery basslines and well-placed percussion accoutrements; spectral melodies provided by pedal steel, whistling, or the wordless vocals of Maria Karlin; a backdrop of strings played by members of the Oregon Symphony. It’s lustrous and rich and exactly what you’d expect.

by Robert Ham