DAVID DONDERO When Dondero slipped out of Wilmington unnoticed by anyone but his parents and friends a couple years back, North Carolina lost one of the country’s most gifted and unheralded songwriters. As if to prove the point, the former Sunbrain singer’s 2010’s release — # Zero with a Bullet — was heralded for its drunken country laments, folk blues ballads and indie rock-snark. Like all his solo work, including the recently released covers-friendly Pre-Existing Condition, the songs are highlighted by Dondero’s too-bizarre-not-to-be-true tales and the kind of Kerouacian detail — crooked managers, New Orleans’ po’ boys, Idaho skies, shitty bosses and Carolina moons — that can only come from an obvious lifer. (John Schacht)

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