Salt the earth and screw the dragons — Sandrider has come. I reviewed the Seattle trio’s self-titled debut back in October, and it remains an upbeat balance of catchy and bombastic songwriting. The guitar of Jon Weisnewski (also vocals) jangles with unhinged swagger, and with Akimbo bandmate Nat Damm on drums and bassist/vocalist Jesse Roberts of The Ruby Doe, Sandrider emerges as a new band that sounds experienced.
Whether it’s the Americana sprawl of “The Judge” or the wailing screams of “The Corpse,” I’ve come to think of Sandrider, the album, as a natural extension sound-wise of what Akimbo did on their excellent and underrated 2008 album,
Jersey Shores. With the Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Isis) production job, the songs are bright and engaging, but still unremittingly heavy heavy and dirty feeling. And the hooks speak for themselves.
So if you were a fan of that record, some of what Sandrider does on these tracks will be familiar, but with Roberts‘ contributions on bass, there’s a new personality beginning to form around the band, and this self-titled is hopefully just the beginning of that development. Like few records I’ve heard this year, it’s one to which I keep returning when I need a kick in the ass.
Seattle‘s own Good to Die Records is, after a couple delays, putting the album out next week on vinyl, and they were kind enough to give me permission to host not one song, not two songs, but the entire record for your streaming pleasure. You’ll find it on the player below. Hope you enjoy:
Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!
Sandrider‘s Sandrider will be released next Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011, via Good to Die Records. For more info, check out Sandrider on Thee Facebooks or at their Bandcamp page. Good to Die‘s website is here.