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The Scoop: It doesn’t happen all that often: you’re at a free show at the local club, waiting to see the headliner you’re there to review, and along comes an opening band that makes your friend turn to you and say “Wow, these guys are pretty good.” Would that The Ashtray Hearts open every show I attend! The Minneapolis sextet plays what they call “apartment music” (but what you probably call “alt-country”), and they find heartache waiting around every corner. A few of the songs toward the middle blend into one another a bit, but the best moments on the album suggest a band with the potential to be at the forefront of their genre. Content-wise, Old Numbers is in some ways a good break-up album, although it’s not recommended for those looking to make a clean break. Things are more complicated here; essentially, the album is about failures who fail each other, only to be drawn back to one another, to be left thinking about the other, time and time again, year after year.
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