The new one from Great Lakes, out now via HHBTM, proves there's so much life left in the whole roots rock thing. I say that, but the stuff on Contenders reveals so much more than one genre like that. There's complexity here, moods, and a kind of joy too.
"Way Beyond Blue" (not the Catatonia song) sounds like mid-period Jayhawks with a dash of Grant Lee Buffalo. Leader Ben Crum gives this a bit of twang-y heft, but the tune goes down like sugar too. Elsewhere, "Easy When You Know How" is more ruminative still, the spectre of The Dream Syndicate looming large, even as "Baby's Breath" jettisons all that in favor of catchy directness. Great Lakes navigate these sub-genres and points of inspiration with ease, offering up chunky stuff like "Broken Even" near wiry gems like "Last Night's Smoke", with each selection having an earthiness about it that makes it closer to Mercury Rev circa 1999 than The Long Ryders circa 1986, though there's a bit of both here. Contenders works best when all this blends and you sort of forget the pieces you may have heard before.
Contenders is now via HHBTM.
More on Great Lakes via the FB page.
[Photo: Jamie Harmon]