The West is the best! Released just last Friday and to no great fanfare, San Francisco's Fresh & Only's sixth album Wolf Lie Down is well worth a listen. It's always refreshing to hear something new, in the well worn tradition of guitar, bass, drums and vocals and think, 'that's interesting' on first listen, not 'that reminds me of ...' It's not a particularly long record, eight songs in all. Says what it wants to and goes on its way. But what it does say is great.
If I had to describe the bands sound I'd say they've do a 'spooked frontier' thing. Probably their best known song Waterfall, from seven years back laid down the template for this. It sounds like a great lost eighties western single in the tradition of Theatre of Hate's Do You Believe in the Westworld, Wall of Voodoo's Mexican Radio and Gun Club's Ghost on the Highway.
Wolf Lie Down follows this lead. Fresh & Onlys are driven forward by the partnership between singer Tim Cohen and guitarist and producer Wymond Miles and they produce a sound that puts a number of their higher-profile contemporaries to shame.
While a number of American bands such as Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire and War on Drugs have recently released highly anticipated records that frankly left me cold, largely through their sense of self-importance, (I must be honest, I didn't even listen all the way through to all of them because they didn't really make me want to), Fresh & Onlys are an entirely different, more modest, yet I'd say ultimately more interesting proposition.
So, eight lovingly crafted songs that I get the sense I'm going to return to on a regular basis over the coming months. Wolf Lie Down echoes within me every time I listen to it. Closing track Black Widow particularly, is one of the finest songs I've heard this year. Sometimes modest says more!
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