The first new material from these Boston legends in nine years marks a sparkling return to form for a band regarded by many as the great lost hope of the early ‘90s. With all three original members now tied down with day jobs and family responsibilities (guitarist/vocalist Bill Janovitz is in real estate, apparently) the new millennium Buffalo Tom are a part-time affair. And all the better for it too, if this record is anything to go by.
A weary maturity is evident from the start, but they’ve lost none of their gift for a pristine melody. The slow-paced opener ‘Bad Phone Call’ boasts some terrific harmonies, a ragged vocal and screaming Neil Young-like guitars. The evocative ballad ‘Lost Downtown’ owes a debt to Teenage Fanclub (or is it the other way around?), while at the same time sounding a tad like our own Revenants’ ‘Let’s Get Falling Down’ – no bad thing. And like Big Star’s ‘Thirteen’ – the original of the species – the low key ‘Pendleton’ manages to get the words “paint it black” into the lyric. Elsewhere, the insistent, driving jangle of ‘Good Girl' and ‘Bottom Of The Rain’ ticks all the boxes.
On the bar-band country rock of ‘Gravity’, meanwhile, Buffalo Tom blend Steve Earle swagger with The Band’s storytelling gift, whilst the urgent title-track and ‘September Shirt’ (another Big Star reference?) find them in full flight, with melodies other bands would kill for. A very good record.