Sub Pop steals my heart

Blitzen Trapper is a spectacular band from Portland, Oregon. They are another folky group signed to Sub Pop, and I can already tell that they will be my next obsession. So Fleet Foxes, I am passing on the torch from one folky Sub Pop band to another. I realize that there are just a few similarities between the two bands (they even performed a few shows together earlier this year), and there is no denying that I'm going through a new-folk phase. But it's a phase I'm loving and I'll ride it 'til the end.


The local college radio station, Ithaca College's WICB, first introduced me to Blitzen Trapper by playing a few of their songs off their new album, Furr, over and over again (namely "Fire and Fast Bullets"). A few days ago, I heard "Furr," the title track, and couldn't get it out of my head. The song is amazing. I looked it up on YouTube, of course, and ended up listening to it about 15 times between yesterday and today. And that kind of dedication is surely love-- or at least fanaticism.


I don't know what it is about "Furr" that pulls me in headfirst, but I do know that the song is completely gorgeous. When I play the song, I feel like a wild creature, half-kid, half-animal, out on a romp through the wilderness. I feel like I should run past trees, up a mountain, and on the shore of a lake all while howling into a ghostly moon. Listening to the lyrics helps this vision, for the song is about an who's compelled to join a wolf pack out in the forest and subsequently turns into a wolf man. Then he ends up leaving it all behind to settle down on a farm with a phenomenal beauty and presumably becomes human again. It's a great story to interpret or just to escape in, and this is escapism is echoed in the incredible and relatable line "I still dream of running careless through the snow." Unless you are a snow-hater *narrows eyes* I don't know who wouldn't want to live this song, even only for a day.


It's not all incredibly folky; "Love You" starts off with the angriest power-scream (think a scream of aching desperation, not death metal). You can hear how much suffering is being caused from loving whatever cold individual the singer is trying to love, and this feeling is even emulated in the sorrowful, droopy groove that's playing behind the singer. Oh, and the vocal harmonies are dope, too.


This album just has so much to offer. You've got an easy-going piano ballad on "Not Your Lover" as well as on "Echo/Always On/Easy Con," which turns into this electronic, jazzy breakdown. Upbeat poppy songs are featured on "Gold For Bread" and "Fire and Fast Bullets" while country peeks through in "Stolen Shoes & a Rifle." It's incredible.



Oh, and did I forget to mention that "Lady On the Water" reminds me of Bob Dylan? Actually, I saved this tidbit of information for last because it is what makes me the most happy. (Yeah, I said I'm going through a phase. Will Folk music ever release me from it's stronghold? Not anytime soon, I reckon.)


I was just a bit disappointed to find out that these guys have been making music since 2003-- they have released three albums on the label Lidkercow, Ltd.-- because it makes me feel as though I've missed part of the journey. I always seem to discover great music after the group has been a well-established band for a number of years. But the two, more popular releases they've done under Sub Pop are fairly recent: Furr in 2008 and Black River Killer EP in 2009. Hopefully I'm not too far behind; indeed, whenever I stumble upon a band already with several releases under their belt, I feel the obsessive need to obtain ALL the material they have ever made RIGHT AWAY. This crazy urge I get made me quite poor when I began to love Bob Dylan. Damn you, Mr. Dylan, and your thirty-something studio albums. And damn you, also, Border's, for selling me over-priced CDs.


For now, I will contently listen to Blitzen Trapper's two Sub Pop releases on their Myspace until my internet browser breaks. Or until I feel the need to return to my true loves, Fleet Foxes. <3



Furr-