Didn’t get around to reviewing this little gem when it first came in so I figured I’d “Album As Art” this shit, as ye olde Happy Jawbone Family Band deliver a record both aurally pleasing and visually stimulating — note the .
Still trying to wrap my mind around this outfit, to be honest. I like just about everything I hear, yet it all cycles through so quickly I’m left with scraps of memories and distant visions of campfires, railroads, smoking metal barrels warming cold hands, jug bands, whiskey shots and sasparilla.
Wait, wait, WAIT … I think I’ve got it: Currituck County/Wooden Wand (with and without The Vanishing Voice) fronted by Ryland Bouchard from On Vacation-era The Robot Ate Me and several sacreligious Sufjan Stevenses, fed through a dusty channel on an early ’90s boombox and mastered by this drunk that used to sleep out behind the gas station I worked at by I-25 on Harmony Road in Fort Collins, Colo., back in 1997. (Hey, I gave it a shot.)
If this is freak-folk I can guarantee it gave that tired genre new, lamp-worthy (if you follow A Christmas Story references) legs; the diabolical spazzoids of Spires That In The Sunset Rise might even want to take note, as their accompaniments never got as interesting as the bells-accordian-foot-stomp-acoustic-slamma-bamma-jam-jam going on within the worn, tattered folds of Hotel Double Tragedy (I take that back, Spires rule).
But wait, WAIT, WAIT: There’s more still. AC/”Campfire Songs”/Sung Tongs/etc., Moldy Peaches, Sebadoh, Ariel Pink‘s latest, No-Neck Blues Band, OCS/Thee Oh Sees during their insanely fruitful folk phase, Ganglians … Continuing to namedrop would violate several indie-rock codes of conduct, so … I’ll cease and desist at this point. Besides, I think you get the gist of my evaluation (sheer goodness GRACIOUS) by now …
When records like this get pressed in such limited quantities (500, I believe) my heart breaks just a little, but based on recent research copies are still floating around. Do your self a non-disservice by sniggety-snizatching one up for yourself or, you know, pay $50 on eBizzle later.
