Gravel voiced punk meets Americana

If cowpunk had steeped somewhere less urbane than Los Angeles, and if its progenitors had brought along the raw amperage of their punk backgrounds, it might have sounded more like this Columbus, Ohio band. Vocalist/songwriter Micah Schnabel sings in a hoarse gargle that’s several steps past “raspy” or “roughhewn,” and his self-reflective lyrics are backed alternately by hard-charging electric rock and acoustic country-folk. He’s a cynical sort, mocking his powers as a musician with the opener’s lyric, “So if it lights you up, and if it turns you on / I will sing to you all your favorite songs.” An ambivalence surfaces in the relationship of “Skinny Legged Girl,” with a love letter in one hand, a poison pen in the other, and his ambivalence extends to music itself, compelled to keep writing, but feeling “it was arrogant to think from the start, you were the only backyard Dylan with a folksinger’s heart.” Schnabel’s gravelly delivery is more Tom Waits than Bob Dylan, and a few of the songs, such as “Glass City,” offer the rising tide of an E Street Band epic. The band’s Americana influences are heard in the jangly rocker “Wooden Teeth,” the emotional ballad “Not Your Friends,” the twangy “Swallowed by the Sea” (with bassist Shane Sweeney providing the low lead vocal), and the exceptional acoustic autobiography “Swingset Assassin.” In addition to Waits and Springsteen, the Replacements and Uncle Tupelo provide obvious antecedents; less obvious are Big Star, the Goo Goo Dolls and even Bryan Adams, and contemporaries like Drag the River and the Drive By Truckers. In the end, Schnabel’s voice is too unique for such simple comparisons, his lyrics too intimately autobiographical, and the band’s combination of fiery punk rock and earthy Americana quite unlike any one of their forerunners. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

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