It’s impossible to believe that this is Miss Mae’s first full-length release. It’s structured perfectly and patiently, it sounds great, and as soon as it finished I started playing it again. It’s got elements of a half-dozen genres, influences from classic psychedelic rock and punk to jazz and cowpunk. This is an impressive, well-developed sound from a band that released their first song only two years ago. Here’s the song that hooked me:
It’s got a killer 70’s guitar/bass groove that made me think of Sweet Emotion at first. By the halfway point it’s into psychedelic guitar jams and harmonies, and by the end, it’s kind of Foghat. And that’s the second last song on the album!
Here’s another banger called Sunrise that kicks off with some Stevie Wonder drums, that I’ve found I’m playing more and more:
The band is so versatile it’s almost impossible to pick a few tracks for this piece. This one is another retro guitar jam that sounds like it could be on the small-town cottage country radio station where my mom lives:
A bit of CCR, a bit of Skynyrd, but fully their own sound.
The album sounds refreshingly low-tech, like it was recorded live off the floor. There are horns, hand claps, group vocals, multi-part harmonies, yelps and howls that sound ad-libbed. The album ends with Month of Mae, that has pretty much all of them in less than five minutes:
If that’s not enough, they play live with the stage presence of a band that’s been touring for years. This video is a recording of two songs from the album live, but skip to 4:05 to see the performance of Sunrise. Holy smokes:
They’ve just released the record and it looks like they have a lot of shows lined up. I’m hoping to get to their gig with Sunnsetter on July 1 at Houndstooth.
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