Wellington three piece The Boxcar Rattle have released their self titled debut long player after their excellent No Justice EP. The new album contains earlier singles, the murderously good Miscommunication and the pyscho-rattling Hallucinogens from which the EP borrows it’s name from.
It’s a gloriously southern-fried swampy affair; sounding like it could be a soundtrack for True Blood had True Blood got better rather than, in this reviewers opinion, worse. And it’s an aesthetic that seems to fit the band well; never wearing thin in the just over 30 minute 13 track album. Vocalist / guitarist Roland Brown seemingly channels a long-lost hillbilly cousin crossed with momentary glimpses of early Puddle.
Track Picks
Aside from the much loves singles (which both come highly recommended) Miscommunication and Hallucinogens I also recommend your ears attend to these tracks:
Government – it rollicks along like a mid-paced Ramones song with the swagger of Iggy Pop while referencing / imitating Dylan; contains the phrase “hipster-hobos” and it’d be hilarious if they applied for and got NZ on Air funding to make a video for it.
Proletarian Life – Roland’s voice is effected-out to sound like its both underwater and in outer-space. At the same time. It’s weird and awesome.
Too Crazy For These Times – possibly the straightest alt-country sounding track on the record; but just wins points for being a great song.
Some Things, Some Things – one of tehe more understated numbers on the album, but something’s strangely addictive about this chorus. Sometimes, when I listen to it, I imagine James Dean playing a cowboy walking off into the sunset along the dusty trail next to a railway track. I don’t really know why, I just do. - review by Andrew Tidball
RATING 9/10
