New Music - Basement Band

I predicted earlier this year that I’d soon have more to say about the multi-colored gatorade chuggers in New York’s Basement Band. With the recent release of their excellent debut through Baskethouse Records, now’s the time. Until The Evening Came is a remarkably consistent collection of dusty folk-rock gems, barreling barroom honky-tonk, and soaring harmonies. It comes 3 long years after long time friends (singer/songwriter) Jeff Malinowski and (drummer) John Durgee moved to Brooklyn, started up the band, and began playing shows around the Northeast.

“Nine Days” is a standout track - a breezy country rock song whose multi-part harmonies sound like Crosby, Stills, & Nash jamming with Stranger’s Almanac-era Whiskeytown. Malinowski often demonstrates the unique ability to write songs that sound timeless, a talent that is perhaps most noticeable on “Soldiers”. The song, whose vivid detail of young men going off to war could very easily be set during any point in U.S. history, earned him a second place finish in the 2007 Williamsburg Songwriters Contest. With vital alt country (whatever that is) albums all but extinct in 2008, it’s refreshing to find a band breathing some new life into a tired genre.

MP3 :: Nine Days
MP3 :: Soldiers
(from Until The Evening Came. Buy here)
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