If you’ve been missing the rambunctious mayhem of The Libertines’ debut album or the raw anger of The Walkmen at their gnarly peak, then this ridiculously talented quartet from the little-known town of Lititz in Pennsylvania just might be, whisper it, your new favourite guitar band.
With an average age of just 20, Rob Grote (vocals), Mark Larson (guitar), Conor Jacobus (bass) and Braden Lawrence (drums) signed to Fat Possum Records (home to The Black Keys, Spiritualized and The Temples) in 2013 but it wasn’t until a year later that they wowed all and sundry at SXSW with their brand of bluesy rawk and angry Americana. It’s taken almost a further year for their Fat Possum debut to arrive but it’s been well worth the wait.
It all starts with the bass, Jacobus setting down a groove so meaty you could trot a horse across it, before being joined by Larson’s jangly guitar, Grote’s emotive vocal and Lawrence’s Strokes-esque four-to-the-floor beat, all of which fuse together to make up marvellous opener, ‘4th And Roebling’. Then there’s the caterwauling guitar and soaring energy of ‘Peaches’, the morning-after melancholia of ‘Chlorine’, the blustery fugue and falsetto of ‘Hounds’ and the distorted sea shanty of ‘Sing The Song’, which takes us up to the halfway point.
The second half is perhaps more ruminative. It begins with the reflective, acoustic ‘Suburban Smell’, before the excitable pulse and crashing chords of ‘Bold’ (complete with frenetic finale) and the cascading widescreen fuzz of ‘Heavy Begs’, eventually winding up with the deliciously distorted acoustic come-down of ‘6AM’. Before that, penultimate track ‘Young Blood’ is a veritable symphony: over eight and a half minutes of serrated soul-searching that’s equal parts prog and post-rock, Grote howling his way through the coda, “It’s a long down from the top to the bottom / It’s a long way back to the heart from where I am”, while his bandmates work themselves into a delightfully sweaty cacophony that’s probably an incredibly communal experience in a live setting.
We’re used to passion from young bands, it’s just not always well directed, but this hits the nail square on the head each and every time with 10 songs that resonate with real quality.

Key Track - 'Young Blood'