Des Moines five-piece the Host Country reflected on the 15-year evolution of their sound on a recent episode of the In the Round podcast. What started as an intimate folk partnership between Diana Weishaar and Ty Wistrand gradually expanded, anchoring its low end with bassist Tom Rue in 2013 to pivot toward an evocative Americana aesthetic. The arrival of guitarist Mike Lovan on 2020’s Strike Gently brought a dual-guitar interplay into the fold, while recent offerings embrace textured synths alongside fresh rhythm work from drummer Chris Marshall, who stepped in during 2023, culminating in the sprawling auditory terrain of the new album Liminal Ways.
While the Host Country sounds like a completely different band, the emotional core is still the songwriting, vocals and harmonies of Weishaar and Wistrand — only now, bedded in a rich, layered landscape of dual guitars, bass, keys and synths. Having more songs than usual written and sung by Diana Weishaar is a welcomed direction. Her jaw-dropping vocals transform songs like “The Rise” and “Leave A Mark” into anthems with the energy of Florence and the Machine. She has an extra gear of vocal finesse: a soaring, Ronstadt-esque ability to curve up into notes with warmth and precision.
Weishaar demonstrates this in the breathless opening track “The Rise.” It’s a uniquely structured song about encountering an inflection point in life and then triumphing. The rolling verse progression describes the journey. “You’re sick of picking from the middle/Now you’re taking from the top/Been getting your hands dirty/Now it’s time to wash ’em off.” Each verse builds until it comes to a crashing half-time pre-chorus and chorus, “And now here you go again/Up in smoke then risin’/Taking what’s yours/Leaving the shore/Hardened and ravenous for more/Oh here you go/Rise.” What follows is a shift, with the opening two verses delivered as a vocal round between Weishaar and Wistrand with distorted guitar soaring over. The song ends where it started.
“The Rise” pulls off this layered complexity by using a base of a relatively simple four-chord earworm progression with, to quote Leonard Cohen, a “minor fall and a major lift.”
The songs “Lightning in the Sky” and “Cobwebs” nod to the folk-rock blueprint Wistrand brought to the band’s previous albums, and provide an introspective counterpoint to the big, layered anthems on Liminal Ways. “Alberta” is a beautifully wistful tear-stained watercolor of emotional disconnect. Stripped-down drums, guitars and an ever-changing piano lead drive this feeling home.
Another high point is Wistrand’s “Living the Dream.” A sleight-of-hand is achieved with its message of working-class heroes slugging it out in workaday jobs delivered in a catchy synthy driving beat reminding me of Future Islands. “They say we’re living the dream/Whatever that really means/9-to-5 to stay alive selling shit to people they don’t really need/They say we’re living the dream.”
The album title was pitched by bassist Tom Rue, who picked up on how the group was drifting through transitional, threshold spaces — personally and as a band. That mood infuses the entire project, yielding a suite of tracks that bottle these shifts and deliver a poignant resonance for anyone traversing their own life pivots.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s November 2026 issue.
