Song, by Toad

[Sunday Supplements this week are brought to you by Campfires & Battlefields, to whom I owe an enormous apology due to the fact that I have been sitting on this post for ages, interrupted first by Christmas, then disorganisation, then ineptitude... you get the picture.]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard (or heard of) a band from Montana before, so I felt a real thrill of discovery when I happened upon Wartime Blues during one of my recent forays into the darker corners of myspace. As you might expect from a Montana band, they are fresh-faced, flannel-clad, mostly, and sincere. There are eight of them, which is roughly six percent of the total Montana population, and I have no idea where they came from, but . . . DAMN.

The style is riffed-up, open-handed Americana, with accoustic and electric guitar, bass, and drums complemented by lots of good banjo, mandolin, cello, and keys of all sorts. It frequently rocks without apology, but just as often shows a restrained tension that sounds like it would translate really well live. Fans of Wilco, Band of Horses, Balletesque by The Young Republic , or Willard Grant Conspiracy will feel more than comfortable in their company, I think. The singing and songwriting duties go to Nate Hegyi, a southpaw guitarist with a real gift for hooks and a gravelly, powerful voice that belies his apparent youth. In fact, the whole band seem to be quite young, but they play with real maturity and sensitivity, like they’ve been doing this for ages.

Wartime Blues just released their debut full-length, entitled Doves & Drums, and you can find it here for the American equivalent of a fiver. A steal. The first tune below is the title track from that album. The second is a brooding slice of gorgeousness called Harelip, which comes from a powerful 2008 session they recorded for Snow Ghost, a really interesting independent music service based in Whitefish, Montana, which gives up-and-coming bands access to state-of-the-art recording equipment and spaces. The rest of the songs from that session are available for download here, and there’s a video there as well for one of their best songs, called Saul Whitewater. Tell me what you think.

Wartime Blues – Doves & Drums

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Wartime Blues – Harelip (Snow Ghost Session)

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Website |Buy |SnowGhost Session