Moving to the country? You could, er, eat a lot of peaches. Or perhaps be a little more Faulkner-esque about it and find inspiration in broken trees and rusty tractors. Either way the desire for rural bliss/quiet isolation is definitely a sign of getting old. It’s also a practice of our alt-rock noisenik heroes of days gone by to, musically at least, leave the smoke and coke behind and head for the big sky country. And get all epic on us.
[a]Two Dollar Guitar[/a] feature the most definitely urban and once sunglasses-and-leather-jacket cool master Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth on board and despite the often downhome worthiness (remember 16 Horsepower?) the hipster gloss hasn’t entirely receded along with the hair line and effects pedals.
‘Kilroy’ and ‘Wilding’ are perfectly smooth and cool company on late, wet motorway rides while Christina Rosenvinge‘s Bjvrk/Nico vocals add a drunk-on-cough-mixture dizzy snakecharm to ‘Green Room’, which also features the bony guitar skills of Smokey Hormel, last seen with Tom Waits.
The beats are weak and the rhymes lame; they think it’s better that way. An oblique and occasionally very cool record which most will ignore. That’s fine, [a]Two Dollar Guitar[/a] are ready for a bit of peace and quiet. And, as your gran will tell you, the older you get, the less people drop by.