Blitzen Trapper “Whiskey Kisser”

by teabog on March 13th, 2007

Blitzen Trapper “Whiskey Kisser”
“Whiskey Kisser” (From the albumBlitzen Trapper)

If you’re judging bands only by the quality of their recorded output, Blitzen Trapper is easily the most unfairly ignored American group of this decade. I liken their releases to early Beck in that they manage to blend and bend dozens of different genres while producing distinctly American rocks that’s both easily accessible and completely unique sounding. It’s not only good music; it’s appealing music, the kind of music that hepsters would initially attach themselves to and then all sorts of college kids would pick up on. This is like Modest Mouse or Spoon, only better than the recent releases of either group. Simply put, it’s very good music that everyone can enjoy.

Why, then, does no one listen to it? As far as I can tell, it’s only because they’re self-released, and the band’s meager budget doesn’t buy them much press coverage. Their self-titled first album, from which the tobacco-soaked, sun-stained “Whiskey Kisser” was taken, wasn’t reviewed anywhere. Their second album, Field Rexx got a fair amount of overwhelmingly positive press coverage, but received little support otherwise. Yeah, a good review in Music for Robots might encourage a few people to check for the group at Amazon, but few are going put forth the kind of effort that tracking down a reasonably priced copy of a self-released album requires.

Anyhow, here’s Blitzen Trapper. They’re really, really good, and you should do what it takes to find and buy their albums.

Blitzen Trapper’s official website

Myspace.