Austin Lucas – At War With Freak Folk
Hometown Caravan 2008
[tags: acoustic, folk, alt country, 10'']
Listen while reading:
___________________________________________________
We go back to the roots after we had some indie rock time the past two days. Yesterday Austin Lucas’ 10’’ At War With Freak Folk (along with his latest LP Somebody Loves You) arrived here and I had to struggle with myself because I could not decide if I should write about the 10’’ or the current album. But in the end I decided to review the At War With Freak Folk plate because I thought, a bit down to earth folk and alt. country mixture is just the right thing for all you lovers of acoustic sound.
At War With Freak Folk was published back in 2008 as a vinyl and Europe only release and it features six songs whereof four of them are also on the Somebody Loves You LP (I Know, I Know and Wild Boar remain exclusive). But the good thing about this is, that all the versions on the 10’’ differ from the final versions. They are all stripped down to acoustic guitar and vocals and you can feel the immense power of Austins’ voice and the beautiful melodies he is able to write, sing and play. I would consider all of the tracks as ballads telling stories of love and misery. One outstanding track is Wild Boar with its traditional feeling and the amazing singing of Lucas. But for I’m not sure if this is a traditional or a self-written track I won’t make a judgement here – but in any case although it may be a cover version, it is just a great track totally worth to end the record.
I highly recommend to buy your copy of the record over at Hometown Caravan as long as supplies last because only 500 copies were made and I think this is a very nice item to have in one’s own collection (to order you have to write an e-mail to Hometown Caravan). If you ask yourself if you should rather buy the current album or the 10’’ you may want to know that Somebody Loves You is also a wonderful record but comes with more instrumentation and is more of an alt. country experience than a mix of folk and alt. country. If you can efford it, just buy them both. For more songs of Austin Lucas head over to his MySpace page.
On last word: It’s up to you to decide if political paroles like “We are the Punx. We don’t need no hippie scum!” have to be carved into the inner circle of the vinyl. But, without judging the statement, I don’t think that Austin Lucas sounds much like punk…ok, maybe as much as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy sounds punky– but definitely not more than that, so don’t worry (convince yourself by listening to the embedded track).
