Review Summary: An auspicious debut from an upstart Philadelphia indie-folk trio.
Philadelphia upstarts TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb have been making local waves for the past year, working the folk-rock and indie scene and shopping demos without putting together an official release. The group’s five-song debut EP finally appeared in February 2009, culled from the dozen-plus songs that had been trading among fans. An auspicious debut, the Hinterlands EP finds the group skirting the edges of folk, indie rock, and alt-country, with a sound that’s likely to win over NPR devotees as easily as hip bloggers.
The EP kicks off with “The Trail of a Lonesome Hobo”, an earthy folk romp that, but for want of a fiddle solo, would make for an instant crowd-pleaser at a bluegrass revival show. After the principal acoustic guitar line plays through once, drums and bass come in unexpectedly in the middle of a measure, only the first of myriad surprises on the disc. A strong off-beat tambourine takes the place of handclaps and boot-stomps, and after the first verse, a sunburst of old-time banjo (played by the group’s bassist, J.J. Willis) pours forth, filling out the sound marvelously. The lyrics tell the tale of the titular character, a picaresque, down-on-his-luck tramp trying, and obviously failing, to woo an unnamed lady.
Following this is “Cantankerous Old Men”, a mid-tempo jangler that rides on simple strummed electric guitar and a loping backbeat. It also features enthusiastic backing vocals from drummer Dan Martino, whose hollers sound as if they were recorded from across an airplane hangar. Each verse deals with the righteous anger of a different character: first a crotchety grandfather, then the President (no particular one), and lastly Jesus. The last of these, upon his return to earth, asks to go to a football game, then finds, to his disappointment, “Everything’s so violent and unruly / Is this the only thing on a Sunday afternoon?” Kong appears to be reaching for wry humor, but the song ends up being sobering in its (possibly unintended) poignancy.
“Sunday Morning” is an acoustic ballad done alone by lead singer/guitarist/harmonica player Dan Bruskewicz. Rueing the excesses of Saturday night, Bruskewicz enumerates the purging rituals and psychological troubles of the weekend binger, before revealing that, well…every morning is Sunday Morning for him. The tune feels like
Warren Zevon at his least goofy, in the rare moments when he would sit and write honest songs that were at once overwhelmingly direct and overwhelmingly moving (such as “Jesus Was a Cross Maker”, from Mutineer). Yet Bruskewicz adds a pinch of embittered grit to the gloom, bringing the sentiment closer to the anguished, windswept folk one hears from city buskers who play for change in subway stations and public squares.
The EP’s weakest moment is “Chris’s Song”, which trots on a sliding, staccato guitar line without filling in much of the space in between. The tune drags a bit and would have benefited greatly from being sped up to perhaps as much as twice as fast. Nevertheless, the lyrics make the song worthwhile, whimsically recounting a shiftless nobody’s dreams of getting out of Dodge in order to escape his ex-girlfriend and his own insignificance.
It’s followed, however, by the record’s strongest moment, the thrilling “Making Up for Lost Time”. Written around a biting, bluesy chord progression, it hits like an atom bomb from the opening salvo, as thundering drums, pounding bass, and wheezing harmonica crash in after a lo-fi guitar intro. In the midst of this relentless, hypnotic whirlwind, Bruskewicz shouts out lyrics brimming with mordant wit, satirizing the chaos and confusion he sees around him. “The blood in our veins looks just like turpentine”, he remarks; “It’s old on the market and sweet on the vine / How can we go on living our lives?” A crazed public, uncertain and manically reaching for a moral compass, “read[s] up on Nietzsche and old Dr. Seuss”, but to no avail: “Say what you want, either way you’re a fool”, he tells us. Clearly, he’s been living through dark times.
The group strongly echoes
Bob Dylan, in the lyrics as much as the music - some of the lyrics even reference the Dylan songbook (“Trail of a Lonesome Hobo”’s chorus includes the line “You just want to follow me/ Down in the flood”, in all likelihood a nod to the Basement Tapes gem). Bruskewicz is a gifted storyteller, crafting tales of drifters, losers, and drunkards into four-minute epics; his soulful baritone recalls
Van Morrison without the whacked-out scatting, or
Mark Eitzel with an IV of joie de vivre. Martino’s sparse yet inventive rhythms give the songs lift and pep; his contributions genuinely make the songs more interesting, rather than simply providing something to tap along to. All of it makes for an expansive and compelling debut, heralding a promising future for Bruskewicz and his Bomb. With any luck, they’ll be getting their well-deserved due alongside
Bon Iver and
William Elliott Whitmore by year’s end.
