Review Summary: I've been wasting the weekends...
A Country Western is one of many DIY bands (many, like them, based in Philidelphia) currently mining a sound at the intersection of a number of 90s alternative-inspired sounds ranging from lo-fi slacker rock and shoegaze to slowcore and alt-country in varying proportions. It's a sound that I am particularly predisposed to enjoy but many of these acts fail to stand out from the pack with a unique sound or consistently strong songwriting. While I have been aware of A Country Western for a while and even heard a few of their songs on a split EP with fellow Philadelphians They Are Gutting a Body of Water,
Life on the Lawn is my first serious dive into their work and I am pleased to say it is quite a strong album. In only 30 minutes the band manages to cover a solid range of sounds and song structures and pull off most of them excellently.
The first half of the record is particularly impressive, the sub-two-minute "Great Is the Grip of the Hawk" serving as an urgent, rip-roaring prologue leading into album highlight "Sidewalk", a glorious and quite interestingly structured song that shows off the band's wonderfully subtle guitar work and gorgeous tones. Similarly great is the melodic, swaggering power pop of "The Dreamer" which is followed by "The Spine"'s drawn-out and pensive slowcore. While this opening salvo contains most of the album's meatiest moments, the stretch of five more succinct, punchy tracks (all coming in under 2.5 minutes) that follows is still consistently enjoyable, especially the wistful "Ridgeline." Fortunately, "Wasting the Weekends" closes the album on a high note, particularly foregrounding the alt-country twang that is more subtly streaked through the band's sound elsewhere. As with most acts that earn the slacker label, A Country Western's somewhat blasé tone (most evident in the vocals and lyrics) may not appeal to all listeners, but those keyed into the sounds it plays with should find plenty to enjoy in
Life on the Lawn.
