MP3: Hyacinth House - Lucky stranger
It's taking me a lot longer than expect to wrap my head around the new Hyacinth House album "Black crows' country". I absolutely love their self-titled debut from 2005 and still consider it to be one of my favorite underrated gems of Swedish music, but this new one defied instant gratification. In some ways, I shouldn't be surprised, especially when I consider that the first one didn't really have anything one could describe as a hit single. There's no one moment that makes you go "yes!", rather it's the sum of the whole that makes it so wonderful. With this new album, that goes double. You see, Hyacinth House has taken the past two years to make huge stride forwards in their craft - they no longer play anything that could merely be labelled as alt.country, no, this is art-rock dressed in country clothing. The instrumentation remains the same - twangy guitars and banjos still rule - but the aspirations are set way higher, much in the same way that Wilco has strove for their past few albums. Well, 'cept that HH retain way more of those country roots and have not gotten increasingly boring as they slowly drift towards jam-band status. It also helps that HH maintains more of a sinister fire & brimstone vibe ala 16 Horsepower/Woven Hand, though I don't think they actually call for hellfire and damnation anywhere on the record. You just get that ominous feeling. This particular track I'm featuring ("Lucky stranger") is almost postrock with its broad dynamics and spacey textures. And that outro - my god, what a finish! It's still not nearly as great when it's divorced from context on the album, but I truly believe that HH has once again made an exceptional record.
Hyacinth House - Lucky stranger