Music Reviews
Bottom of the Hudson

Bottom of the Hudson

Songs From the Barrel Commando

Happy Home

That Bottom of the Hudson conjure up images of American indie rustics like Grandaddy, Red House Painters and Early Day Miners isn’t that surprising. They’re all hewn from various portions of the rural, lo-fi Americana landscape, where clattering guitars and shambolic rhythms tend to give way to an unexpected level of grandeur, when the band hits its stride. Hudson errs more on the grimy edge of this territory, vaguely thorny and unapproachable, where tuneless singers attempt three part anti-harmonies, where the distortion is allowed to creep much more liberally into the mix, careening half of the album headlong into the waiting arms of plodding dirges of the other half. This predilection for buzzsaw guitars and big pop riffs via moog places them close to Scandinavian greats like Moonbabies or homegrown bar-band stompers like The Replacements. It’s nice to hear a new, weird take on folk music that doesn’t lead to a flowery collective in San Francisco. More please.

Happy Home: http://www.happyhomerecords.com


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