Join The A.A.
Maybe too much coffee last month, and I’m still in an alt-country listening kind of mood.. do you ever find albums that just grow on you? My all-time Americana favourite – Peter Bruntnell‘s ‘Normal For Bridgwater’ was one of those.. seeped into my consciousness over a good few months and now it’s one of those albums I could never do without.
Here, maybe, is another one. Scott Bondy was the leading light of moderately successful (and Dave Grohl produced) grunge rockers Verbena. He’s now released his solo debut on Fat Possum, entitled ‘American Hearts’.. A.A. Bondy is the name he trades by now.
It has that back porch ambience, recorded on a couple of microphones, very dry, which suits the man’s style perfectly. Songs of love, loss and damnation: a bluesy folk-us, guitars sliding and slithering in and out of the ether. It’s gritty, but accomplished.. Auguste Arthur doesn’t put a foot wrong throughout the record.
