After nearly a decade of flirtation,
Blitzen Trapper
finally took the plunge and dove headfirst into the lake in crafting
American Goldwing
, a straight-up, mid-'70s inspired Southern rock album that fuses the Saturday night swagger of
Lynyrd Skynyrd
with the stoic peasantry of
the Band
. Similar in sound and feel to fellow Pacific Northwesterners the
Decemberists
'
King Is Dead
, but sporting a darker patina of authenticity (which is odd, considering neither group has roots in the deep south),
comes out of the gate howling with "Might Find It Cheap," a taut and infectious, summer boot-stomper that sounds tailor-made to buckle the speakers in a second generation Pontiac Firebird. What follows is a lovingly balanced set of rural rockers ("Street Fighting Sun") and dirt road ballads ("Girl in a Coat") that sound about as far from the murky introspection of 2010's
Destroyer of the Void
as one would expect from a band that continuously tries to reinvent themselves within their own psych-folk/alt-country/indie rock universe, and almost always succeeds. ~ James Christopher Monger