On
my first time through the Tigers Jaw music, an interesting thing happened. A
song started that sounded like Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy", and sure
enough, "Gypsy" was the track title.
My
first thought was why would you cover that song, but then I remembered how
Lindsey Buckingham had come up in the greatest guitar songs comments, and as we
got to the guitar near the end of the song, yeah, then it made sense why you
would cover it. It was familiar, but I hadn't really noticed it listening to
the Fleetwood Mac version because it is overshadowed by everything else. When I
brought up the Fleetwood Mac version later, I heard it better. Pretty cool.
One
of the things that I find encouraging about doing band reviews is that even if
the initial posting does not get a lot of hits, it will get other hits later.
Last week I saw page hits for Touché Amoré and Dads. This made sense, because
they were touring together, but then it made me feel deficient that I did not
have a review for the other band on the lineup, Tigers Jaw. So here we are.
Tigers
Jaw is a grunge/indie pop duo from Scranton, Pennsylvania. They have kind of a
muddy sound. It's not as heavy as sludge, with its pop leanings. I believe they
are achieving this via off-tuning rather than using a lot of distortion, which
gives it a milder feel.
At
least on Spotify they have a pretty broad discography, going back to 2006. I
focused on the current release, Charmer. "Hum" even has a
video, and in it the instruments don't quite stay in place for the players,
giving an interesting feeling of disconnection.
They
only show one guitar and one keyboard, but the sound is fairly full and deep.
"Hum" is a good starting point. It highlights the strong guitar, but
gives a feel for their vocals and aesthetic, which does feel very indie but is
also sometimes kind of folk-flavored.
I
do also want to mention the slightly older track off of the Remastered version
of Belongs To The Dead. "Heat" is short, but has some funk in
its layers that I think is worth appreciating. And of course, I am grateful for
the lessons in the "Gypsy" cover.
Current
tour dates go through July 26th, but one tweet led me to believe that there
will be another tour shortly after that.
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