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With many of the best Americana bands out there today, such as Dakota Suite or Calexico, it’s really the groove, thefeel of the music which counts more and more- the atmospherics and where the band take you, and not the individual songs. So it is with The Ashtray Hearts, who either from the Twin Cities or Oregon (a Google search amusingly allows the possibility that this album was recorded at the OBT- Oregon Ballet Theatre, but I suspect not). This six piece are firmly camped over the river from the heart of genre, and remind me most of American Music Club and Willard Grant Conspiracy, as they are dark, acoustic and moody a great deal of the time. They are rescued from the gloom by the human heart of their landscape, Aaron’s Schmidt’s vocals, which sound like they’ve been stolen from Jim Bryson’s younger, drunker brother. Mostly, though, as with any of the above or the likes of Radiogram, the things that hit you straight between the eyes are the arrangements and the way disparate and potentially discordant instruments are integrated into a meaningful and natural sounding entity, which comes over as either tied to the land or to an urban bedsit. Brad Augustine lays down soft piano and accordion backing on many tracks, whilst Schmidt’s trumpet is a welcome if infrequent visitor; Steve Yernberg’s understated lead guitar breaks are as eloquently repressed as Joe Pernice or Bruce Tull’s on “Massachusetts”, and his complex banjo picking performs an essential, mood-altering backdrop for the other five musicians. Favourites? Opener “Amusement Park”, as it’s the most anguished, “Southern Wedding” because it’s the saddest, and “Watching Me Try”: this latter because of it’s sense of resignation and almost perverse declaration of betrayal, even though it seems pointless to tell the truth now: “but you know what it’s come down to- I gave away everything I promised you…”. On a par with Chris Mills’ “Walk with God”, this is a beauty of song, and a fine bookend, leaving you only with the desire to play the whole thing all over again, sinking into your sofa with that half empty bottle of Noah’s Mill on the floor beside you. The Ashtray Hearts are touring the UK in July, and on this showing, they’re natural and talented companions for Radiogram and would have been for the Scud Mountain Boys; they stand every chance of being kings of their (velvet and joyously depressing) niche in a few short years.
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