Reviewed by Eric Saeger
This Gainsville-based unplugged-punk unit would be a perfect warm-up for Mumford & Sons, from their banjo-banging hillbilly depravity to their raspy, drunken vocals, which reveal these fellers as heavy users of Kings of Leon (there are dead-on imitations of Caleb Followill, most prominently on ‘Always’, which will undoubtedly pose problems in the grand scheme of things). For the most part it’s banjo, fiddle, suggestions of poor dentistry, all with one eye toward mixing things up a little with Reel Big Fish. Along with this, though, is an odd flavor of Grateful Dead, a vanilla-pop sort of thing that helps a little to separate this band from the formidable scrum of contenders reading from the same rudimentary blueprint. I don’t believe there’s a lot of spare room for this type of approach in Bonnaroo land, not without a bit of glitch sampling or something else that might really brand them, so their workload is pretty deep.
Grade: C+
