Natural Child

This debut album from Nashville trio Natural Child comes as advertised, a rusty, country-fried rock n’ roll record no doubt spurred on by the magic that went down at Villa Nellcote in the south of France during the druggy, exiled summer of its namesake. Bolstered by an abundance of Caucasian funk and half-baked whimsy, Natural Child freely saunter through eleven songs of bare-boned garage fuzz (“Easy Street,” “Hard Workin’ Man,” “Makin’ It,” “Natural Blues”), acoustic blues (“Woman C’mon,” “White People,” “Yer Birthday”), hazy jams (“Yoko,” “Let it Bleed,” “Beer”), and some punk-infused pop (“Chris’ Blues”), and ought to remind you of the Rolling Stones (natch), Lions in the Street, The White Stripes, and The Flaming Sideburns. You know, forty years removed and 1971 does a helluva job harnessing the kind of weird, organic rock that once served millionaires, dope fiends, and outlaws extremely well.

Listen to “Easy Street” from 1971!

The Brought Low
Third Record

It’s a rare and celebratory day when a new Brought Low album drops, so stop whatever it is you’re doing, dust off the ol’ beard, summon the buzzards, and grab a pint of glory. The obviously named Third Record is just that, and only in the last ten years, too. Christ, it’s like these fuckers live looser than a goose the day after Thanksgiving, only stumbling out of their Dudeist rock haze once every four or five years to lay a big, bad-ass, bloozy rock record on us. You’ve got to have a whole heap of respect for a band who rocks on THEIR terms, the same way you envy a fat cat sleeping in the sun on a dusty Sunday afternoon. Fuck, you say, I wish I could live/rock like that.

The Brought Low could easily be the undisputed Glam Boogie Kings of New York City if they wanted to be, but in a place where you’ve got to be seen to be somebody, there ain’t too many bright lights shining on the chicken coop of the slow roll. Their riffs flow like molasses, but glitter like stardust, and songs like “Everybody Loves a Whore” and “The Kelly Rose” drop out of the sky like thunder and lightning while others like “A Thousand Miles Away” and “Last Man Alive” float effortlessly on by like clouds in a prairie sky. I don’t know what these boys have been doing with all that time between albums, but they sure as shit haven’t been messing with their tired and true formula of Skynyrd n’ Stones riff n’ roll, of Crowes n’ Cactus rock n’ soul, that’s for damn sure. Internationally speaking, I’d compare them to Canada’s Lions in the Street or England’s The Thieves, but The Brought Low are an all-out, blue collar slice of Americana pleasure pie, and Third Record should fill you up for the next four or five years. I mean, it’s gonna have to, right?

Listen to “The Kelly Rose” from Third Record!

Buy Third Record from Small Stone (when it comes out in May)!