Like Jackson Pollack, the band generates a sound that is clearly inspired by the moment. Sometimes this artistic looseness demonstrates itself to be a fairly successful means of song writing, as with Wild Mountain Nation’s title track, a cruising Lynyrd Skynyrd twanger that grooves along a prominent slide guitar.
It even brings out the album’s best song, “Country Caravan,” a campfire jamboree that begs for a stomping sing-along. Other times it yields results like the bizarre “Woof & Warp Of The Quiet Giant’s Hem,” a jumbled chaos of distorted riffs, vocal yeah-yeah-yeahs, and animal howling that just seems like a noisy waste of good four-track production tape.
Listening to Blitzen Trapper is like listening to a conversation with a crazy, old prospector who’s finally decided to come down off the mountainside. Though he’s got a few nuggets of gold in his pocket, you can’t deny there’s something mighty strange about him.
– Mike Hilleary
Blitzen Trapper