I get the impression that Greg Freeman is one of those guys who doesn’t small talk. Hanging at the bar, probably drinking an unassuming beer/shot combo, he’ll just get right into it – maybe tell you a story about a local who went colorblind after a street fight, or mention how in 1816 a volcanic eruption in Indonesia led to crop failures in swaths of New England (known as “The Year Without a Summer”). The Vermont-based musician has a clear eye for those types of small, potent stories that can be refracted into larger allegories about waking life. On Burnover, the musician mines histories like the aforementioned 19th century meteorological happening to craft his wayward alternative country ballads. With his warbly croon and asskicking Americana riffs, Freeman proves that weird, wonky tunes about niche subject matter can not only be pungent but truly universal.