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Jamestown, The First Town In America (July 17, 2012) |
I've been trying to tell you all for awhile now that CT is one of the most eclectic music scenes anywhere in the U.S. If you didn't believe me before then hopefully you will after you listen to the newest album from Jamestown, The First Town In America.
First off, as a self-proclaimed history nerd, I would like to state for the record that Jamestown, The First Town In America might be the longest band name ever, but it's also one of the best I've ever heard. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, New Haven's JTFTIA have very recently unleashed a brand new seven-song, self-titled album via their Bandcamp page, where you can stream it for free. To be frank, this album is good. It's really good and to me sounds like the culmination of a band taking all of their eclectic influences, mashing them up into a million pieces and then rebuilding them into a sound they can truly call their own.
The opener, "Slip Into The Sea" starts off with some beautiful vocal harmonizing before launching into a Beach Boys meets Fleet Foxes number that, I swear to you, may quickly become my new Summer soundtrack. The track "Have You Considered The Alternative" highlights the band's Motown and blue-eyed soul influences, while "Weekend" is ripe with '50's and 60's early rock n' roll. Heavy doses of acoustic guitar, well-timed horns, introspective lyrics, and rip-roaring piano are all over this album. To say that songs like "For You My Dear" are 'danceable' is a complete understatement. If you aren't, at the very least, vigorously tapping your feet when you listen to this album you simply don't have a pulse.
Yet this isn't all fun and games as songs like "Winter" and "Indigo" have a meandering and blissful vibe to them that keep this album rooted in indie rock no matter how far it floats into the jazz, soul, blues, and early rock territory. But this isn't an "indie rock" record per se. In fact to try and label it as just that, I think, would be insulting to what this band was trying to, and succesfully, achieved. Fans of everything from the Beatles to Jerry Lee Lewis to Hall & Oates to Band of Horses will find something to dig on this album. Go listen to it right now.
