CD: Blitzen Trapper: American Goldwing

Blitzen Trapper delivers lumberjack nostalgia with American Goldwing, the band’s sixth album. With John Deere caps and old man’s beards they race along the highway, sending kisses to glam rock and San Francisco’s hippie scene.

Portland lies in Oregon, roughly 300 kilometres south of Seattle where the record company Sub Pop has revitalised itself with Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes after the suicide of grunge. Now, Portland seems to be the new in. Hardcore folkies know Portland for the fantastic, now deceased banjoist Derroll Adams who used to tour with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and who appears in D.A. Pennebakers Dylan-film Don’t Look Back i scene from a hotel room in London where someone had thrown a glass out of a window. Derroll Adams turned out to be the guilty one and to make up for the whole thing, he offers to teach young Dylan a few tricks.

Old 20 year old men

In recent years, Portland has caught the wave and today represents a wonderful and varied music scene, including The Decemberists and Blitzen Trapper. Several other artists, including M. Ward, The Shins, Modest Mouse and Steven Malkmus have been drawn there too.

Blitzen Trapper have now released their sixth album – the third with Sub Pop – and the members have brought with them from Seattle the lumberjack shirts, the John Deere caps and the famous beards that make 20 year old boys look like old men.

Twilight nostalgia
With their werewolf hit Furr from the record of the same name, Blitzen Trapper walked straight into the annoying ”Twilight”-feeling where strange creatures haunt the huge forests of the state of Washington. Furr also has a striking resemblance to The Rumour Said Fire’s The Balcony. But, Blitzen Trapper did come first and even though Furr ­– the record – was a mixed bag, I’ve always cared more for Blitzen Trapper than for the aforementioned Seattle bands who quickly become self-important and overly pompous. And when Blitzen Trapper at concerts play classics such as Tom Paxton’s Last Thing on My Mind, it makes an old folky heart bleed and you suddenly notice the huge influences in folk music.

American Goldwing is more than a trip down Interstate 5 from Seattle to Portland. It’s a journey into American rock, folk and country music. With Might Find It Cheap the record is kicked off with classic South State Rock in the style of Lynard Skynard and the rock sound continue during most of the record which is stylistically wide-ranging.

Hippie hoedown
Your Crying Eyes is a great example. It opens with genuine hoedown harpe which immediately continues into T-Rex style glam rock, but, stylistically, Blitzen Trapper stay on the American west coast, especially with loving thoughts to San Francisco.

It may seem like a dilemma for Blitzen Trapper who in sound and attitude would fit in well on the American jam scene, which has The Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead as some of its godfathers. After Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, the focus shifted to a new generation lead by Phish and Widespread Panic. The jam band sound was refined and is probably somewhat ended up with the uniformity which it initially rebelled against with hour-long concerts where a great deal of time was spent on improvised jam sessions. On the other hand, Blitzen Trapper aren’t conceptual enough to fit into a jam band scene which still – ironically – is based on dogmas and self-praise, seen especially among semi rich college students and drunken eco-hippies who spend most of the summer chasing after a jam band in a battered minivan.

That’s why it’s rather liberating that Blitzen Trapper play the kind of music that touches them. They aren’t as calculated as a lot of other Sub Pop bands. On American Goldwing, the tone is harder than on the predecessor, Destroyer of the Void, with which Blitzen Trapper attempted indie-folk. What’s more preferable is a matter of taste. American Goldwing is down the highway whereas Destroyer of the Void is a bit more back to the woods.

Blitzen Trapper: American Goldwing
SupPop/Target (2011)

To read this review in Danish, click here.