BLITZEN TRAPPER
Field Rexx (self-produced)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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An album's zeitgeist can be ascertained on its initial listen 9 out of 10 times; more often than not, it's clear by the first or second song. In the case of Portland Oregon's Blitzen Trapper and their new work Field Rexx, what their intent might have been is a guarded, obscure secret, and perhaps the genius of it all.

The songs here aren't easily separated into fifteen individual tracks; they feel like variations of themes mashed into something coherent and only modestly resembling their contemporaries. Those themes might be construed as the fractured pop song; the psychedelic country/western composition; the sonic experiment gone mad. Blitzen Trapper goes from playful improvisation on "Gold Gold Diamond" to serious country balladry on "Concrete Heaven (Live at Tecumseh Natl. Balast)" and back again with an uncommon ease, all the while tossing in snippets of personality. A casual witness to tracks such as "Turkey in the Straw (James 1982)" and "James and Larry Earley (1982)" might deem them throwaways but nothing could be further from the truth. In the case of a mad band of impresarios like Blitzen Trapper the slightest arch of their eyebrows contain tales of unquestionable wizardry.

[Pick this up at CDBaby.]

© 2005 - Erick Mertz