Blitzen TrapperWild Mountain Nation
Lidkercow Ltd./Sub Pop Records
2007
Rating: Pop quiz, hotshot. It's 1875. It's 1975. It's both those years and it's 2007, too. Oh, and also, there's a bomb on your bus and you can't go too slow or you get replaced by Jason Patric in the sequel. What do you do, punk? What do you do?
This is my first Blizten Trapper album. It comes on like a punch in the face and leaves like that soaring eagle/hawk/bird of prey on the cover of their disc, gliding on God-made air currents over purple mountains majesty. Man does it ever!
Somehow these guys made two records that totally flew under the radar (self-released, I believe), then BOOM!!! Wild Mountain Nation! It makes me think of a cross between Appalachian Hillbillies and those weird people that lived in the mountains around Gondor in Tolkien's Return of the King. Right? And this is wild man music, for sure. And this is hillbilly music, for sure. And this is Detroit Rock City, for sure. And this is glam-downed punk, for sure. And this is what the late 60s/early 70s sound like in 2007, for sure. Forget all those bands who're trying to recreate Rock's Golden Age. Instead, harken to Blitzen Trapper, and heed their riffs and/or steaming guitar solos! Man oh man do they have a story for you!
And the following is that story. You follow?
"Devil's A-Go-Go": sort of like that bass line from that one P-Diddy song that had Ben Stiller in the video, but bigger and badder and with lots-o-angular gee-tars. But it doesn't come close to defining this album. In fact, no one song can define this album NOR this band. Well, maybe "Proud Mary" does, but that's not even their song. So it doesn't count.
"Wild Mountain Nation": kind of laid-back country rock, but post-punk. No, it doesn't sound like what you have in your head right now. It's mellower. Just listen to it, already.
"Miss Spiritual Tramp": I guess it's sort Nuggets-sey, but not really. More Zep. Oh dude, and with cow bell!
"Woof & Warp of the Quiet Giant's Hem": it has these harmonic guitar parts that I could reference better if I had lived and loved in 1973 or something. But I wasn't born yet. So I got nothing for you.
"Wild Mtn. Jam": lo-fi, jug-band blues. With psychedelic leanings. The American Anthology of Folk Music distilled in Kentucky-by-way-of-Haight-Asbury.
"Country Caravan": like Devendra, if he were a cowboy maybe?
My point is this. Your neighbor was right. You should start taking his advice. She probably knows you better than you know yourself. Listen better today than you did yesterday. This music was made for righteous dudes. Like this one time, I overheard these two men talking about a screenplay in a Barnes and Noble outside of L.A. And they were all gossipy about their friend and his girlfriend. Boy, that was stupid. They would not like this album.
But you will.
BlitzenTrapper.net
Blizten-to-the-Trapper's MySpaceSpage
BT's seizure inducing video for "Woof & Warp"
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