More Primitive

Album review

Given that most independent rock bands inspired by the blues go out of their way to play as hard, heavy, and dramatically as possible, as if the goal was to drag Savoy Brown into the 21st century, Lonesome Shack are refreshingly subtle -- the band's touch is light and dynamic, with a clear appreciation of the virtue of open spaces and low-key grooves rather than Blueshammer-style overstatement. More Primitive is the work of a band that clearly worships at the altar of Junior Kimbrough, complete with languid but insistent guitar patterns and minimal rhythms that become hypnotic as they repeat themselves over the course of four or five minutes. Ben Todd's guitar work is about mood, not fretboard pyrotechnics, and the purposeful drift of the ten tracks on More Primitive comes from Todd's picking, while bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Kristian Garrard thankfully also embrace a "less is more" aesthetic, laying out rhythms that are simple, measured, and unrelenting. Of course, the trouble is that hypnotic can be a good or a bad thing, and More Primitive is a bit of both. This trio puts enough weight behind "Head Holes" and "Big Ditch" that they wind into something that's both simple and truly absorbing, but on many of the other cuts, the momentum of the songs begins to wear down after a few minutes, and as a whole More Primitive sounds sleepy when it needs to sound minimal but determined. More Primitive is an album that would sound great at 3 A.M., but that's as much because it could help someone get to sleep as mesh with the mood of the middle of the night, and Lonesome Shack could play with just a bit more force and still honor the feel they're aiming for on these sessions.

© Mark Deming /TiVo