"Gimme back my da-a-a-wg!" It's a sweet, heartfelt sentiment, spoken plainly, and encased within several hundred flinty decibels of rusted guitar noise. Which is, of course, how things should be.
Nearly a decade on from Uncle Tupelo's seminal ear-ringing first offerings, their bastard offspring, alt-country, has gotten all smoothed-out and gentrified. Welcome, then, Slobberbone, a big, messy, raucous noise staggering over from Texas, reminding us why reviving that most-maligned of genres, country, was a good idea in the first place.
Anyone who owns a Replacements record or three will find plenty to please them here. Brent Best, guitar-slinger and owner of a heartbreaking sandpaper voice, leads the four-piece through a similarly soused landscape of fuck-ups and regret. It's erudite as you'd want, with Best bawling bourbon-wisdom like 'Lazy Guy' as dog-eared garage-twang pours easily out of guitarist Jess Barr's amps. No classical pentameter, but it's still poetry.
In their hometown in Texas, Slobberbone are simply regarded as a punk-rock band, and for all the dustbowl melodicism on display, you can tell the hometown boys are dead right. Slobberbone offer a pared-back beauty, which delivers emotion straight to your heart.
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