Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Cream Calendar / Reviews Fresh Track and More: Hammertorch Release Lions Don't Cry at The 5 Spot July 23
Posted by D Patrick Rodgers on Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 3:50 PM
Hammertorch--the most legit alt-country five-piece to come out of Murfreesboro since you-know-who (rhymes with Flossary)--have just finished a brand-new record called Lions Don't Cry, and they're celebrating its release at The 5 Spot tomorrow evening. Also playing are Chris Crofton and the Alcohol Stuntband--last seen kicking ass unironically on Monday night--as well as Eric Zarycki and the Persuasion. I gave the record a spin and wrote up a little Critic's Pick:
Sometimes Hammertorch crank out the type of driving, blue-collar alt-country--saturated with influences from the Stones to Gram Parsons--that most native Tennesseans might find perfectly familiar. The pounding barroom piano, colossal drum sounds and melancholic vocals of songs like "Breakneck Speed" are of an elusively enjoyable and smart Southern-rock ilk. But it's tunes like "Cemetery Dance"--with its entrancing steel-guitar hook and astonishingly appropriate disco beat--that let you know these dudes are truly onto something. "Too Little Too Late" is an epic, echoing ballad just a generation removed from Crazy Horse or The Band, while "Roger McFadden's Danger Society" bursts into riffy interludes so sharply played that we're tempted to call them "Countrytallica."
Read the rest here. Hammertorch will also be doing a Murfreesboro record release at Wall Street on Aug. 1 with All We Seabees & The Bohannons. Have a listen to "Cemetery Dance" below.
And in the interest of fairness, I thought I'd mention that locals Umbrella Tree will also be playing a record release tomorrow evening. Well, technically it's a CD/DVD release. It's at Mercy Lounge, and you can read Jewly Hight's feature on Umbrella Tree here. Local records. Buy 'em.
Comments (9)
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I won't lie. I've recycled that tag a couple of times now. Is that cheating? Fuck it. It's funny.
There is one - but one - band that "countrytallica" describes. And that is the original and, for my money, best lineup of The Jigsaw Mountain Boys, now known as Shoot The Mountain.
TEXACO!
Yes Jon. But now that said incarnation of the Mountain Boys is extinct—and seeing as how two of the original members are in Hammertorch—someone must be dubbed the current stewards of Countrytallica. It's too satisfactory of a description to be retired, and it's always been about Jason Yeary's shredding anyhow. The ruling on the field stands.
Also, TEXACO!
Thanks to your very deft sporting analogy, I accept this changing of the guard. But not before shedding a single tear in remembrance of the forebearers of The Countrytallica Sound: JIGSAW MOUNTAIN BOYS.
Go hammertorch! Good album. I always thought they sounded more like flostfinger than flossary.Where did they record the new album and who engineered it?
Curious, the 'Torch recorded this one with Jesse Newport at Club Roar. That's all the info I've got.
We recorded most of the drums and rhythm tracks at Club Roar, see the Raconteurs video for salute your solution for images of the space. Although, The song posted was tracked primarily, along with several other songs, at Coat of Arms, my place on the east side. The guys also recorded some elements at their home studio in Murfreesboro on their own.
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