Description
One of the freshest and most authentic bands on the current No Depression/ Rock scene does not hail from Austin, Raleigh or Louisville but from Edinburgh in Scotland.
The Wynntown Marshals brew of classic 70s-style country rock, guitar rock with 80ies pop elements and todays interpretation of Americana sounds so genuinely American that one almost wants to see their passports to believe their origin. The End Of The Golden Age is the quintets brand-new fifth album it ranges between the sounds of the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco to Son Volt, Jayhawks and Whiskeytown with references to the Stones, Neil Young, Wilco and Tom Petty. With ten convincing tracks it is their most mature and organic, in short their best album to date.
Starting with the melodic rock of There Was A Time until the album-closing, hooky title track The End Of The Golden Age, the album delivers Marshals quality with all its well-loved ingredients: jangly 12-string Rickenbackers, intricately layered guitars, often erupting into twin solos, the rhythm sections rolling Americana beat and the lovely interplay of Keith Benzies charismatically raspy lead vocals and the pristine three-part harmonies often reminiscent of the Eagles or CSN, the delicate pedal steel ornaments, the earthy organ or delicate piano fills, the natural analog sound of it all. Dead Sunflowers and Better Than Yesterday, both stage-tested, are convincing, straight-ahead electric guitar rockers. Being Lazy is a Murdoch MacLeod number that finds its perfect incarnation as a lazy, semi-acoustic, slow motion ballad with pedal steel and Bruce Michies one-man brass section. Proof of the albums significant country rock factor is provided by Red Clay Hill (with guest vocals by Hannah Elton-Wall from the Redlands Palomino Company), the bittersweet Idaho with its killer chorus, the plaintive, midtempo number The Girl On The Hill and the MacLeod-penned Metagama. Moby Doll develops in over six minutes into a Wilco-like epic with guitar, organ and trumpet (Bruce Michie again) jam on a rousing finale.
With this strong outing the Wynntown Marshals have finally established themselves as a self-contained band with an original flavour in the Americana genre easily on a par with their colleagues from the other side of the Atlantic. The End Of The Golden Age sets the bar for vital, handmade country & guitar rock in 2015 all the bands fans can look forward to their upcoming European tour and the live debuts of these strong new songs!
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