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The Baptist Generals
If anybody's been through the school of hard-knocks, it's Chris Flemmons. His raw, cracked voice is the centerpiece of Denton, Texas-based band The Baptist Generals, whooping and crooning through the fuzz. He sings like an aged, road-weary, dirt-covered, homeless soul who teeters between being enveloped by his sorrow and spurred onward by unimaginable rage. And Flemmons sings about, well, all of the shitty beauty that makes up life. There's no shiny plastic exterior in this music, it's lower than lo-fi, all distorted and creaky and imperfect, and more real than anything I've heard in a while.
And it's nearly impossible to describe exactly what the Baptist Generals sound like. Uniquely Southern and most definitely from Texas, they walk the fringes of indie rock, folk, and Americana at the same time, creating a collage all their own. Take your typical folk singer and make him a raging lunatic, lock him in the garage with an eight track, then add in your archetypal country music band but give them only acoustic instruments and then turn up all the amps to 11, and then you're almost to the sound of the Baptist Generals. Almost. The songs range from the hostile and bitter, sometimes frightening, and then they switch it up, creating sorrowful, majestic ballads with bite.
The Baptist Generals - Alcohol (Turn and Fall)
The Baptist Generals - Going Back Song
The Baptist Generals - Fucked Up Life
Official Baptist Generals site. Buy No Silver/No Gold from SubPop Records, iTunes Music Store, Amazon.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row at 03.11.05 at 11:32 AM
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