Minneapolis band True Green make easy-to-like, all-American indie. Similarities to contemporries like King Tuff, and past legends like Silver Jews are obvious, but the tunes here on Hail Disaster manage to please on their own terms all the same.
True Green is Dan Hornsby and Tailer Ransom with assorted contributors. The sound is lo-fi but engaging. The tracks here have a ramshackle quality from the spry "Italian Lightning", the opener, to the lyrical "Hamlet and Juliet" later on the record. There's a real debt to Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement on "Beatlemania", a highlight here, and True Green do very well with this kind of thing. The cleverly titled "Consider the Priesthood" is more down-tempo and that's fine, but the material is a little same-y when it's not more upbeat.
There's a lot to like here on this True Green record. I'm not saying that it's as good as David Berman's stuff, but at least True Green are taking obvious inspiration from guys like that. Hail Disaster sounds like something from the mid-Nineties, when American indie bands were getting signed left and right. And it's got a real throwback charm to it. No doubt about that.
Hail Disaster by True Green is out on Friday. Details below.
[Photo: True Green]