Labels: bakery outlet
Review by: Tom Winter
Old Growth are a band I’m really not familiar with but they’re a three piece out of Portland, Oregon who recently toured with Science of Yabra and Tubers amongst others. The overriding impression from the album is a pretty healthy appreciation of country and rockabilly sorts being filtered through a fairly snotty-punk delivery.
It’s all engagingly ephemeral stuff and I can imagine a lot more raucous in a live context. The record contains a fairly diverse set of songs exhibiting a range of influences; it’s all pretty fuzzed out and lo-fi with strong atavistic tendencies. Standout tracks include the country inflected “Southern Charm”, which throws in some Pavement-esque high end guitar stuff underneath a pretty straight up framework and “Wasted the Day” which exhibits vocal delivery with a clear nod to “77. It’s a formula that works well on a pretty breathless record which hangs together well. Some of the delivery is reminiscent of Drive By Truckers in the fairly “rock’ end of the spectrum but a lot of the instrumentation wouldn’t be out of place on some of No Idea’s gruffer offerings.
Sometimes the record’s diversity does cause its own problems with “Bury My Body” sticking out as a not-quite-fully-formed nod towards Unwound or mid-90’s Ebullition type stuff. I’m all for records which are in a sense internally inconsistent but there still needs to be an overarching harmony which this hasn’t quite nailed. All told it’s definitely worth a listen and acts as a well informed update on some old themes with some standout moments.