You Might Find it Cheap but You’re Never Gonna Find it Free

Blitzen Trapper were one of the bands that made my recent Best of Neo-Folk sampler and like most of the bands on the list, calling them just plain folk is going a disservice to them because they do more than just down with an acoustic guitar and churn out mellow tunes. The group’s latest album American Goldwing is their most eclectic to date with early eighties Tom Petty rock (album opener Might Find it Cheap), fuzzed out sixties garage band (Your Crying Eyes), seventies freak-out rock (Street Fighting Sun), alt-country from the late nineties (the title track), and possibly the greatest song The Band never recorded (Fletcher).

But the standout tracks are when the band slows things down and brings out that folksier sound. The mellowest tracks are Taking it Easy Too Long and album closer Stranger in a Strange Land, both of which are storytelling at its best. While Love the Way You Walk Away is the band at its friskiest and is song that just begs to play the next time you are out driving though your local country roads, preferably at night. Astronaut is a sweet ballad that turns into a country tune halfway through before returning back to how it started.

Song to Download – Love The Way You Walk Away

American Goldwing gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.