Artist - The Mumlers
Album - Don’t Throw Me Away
Label - Indianola
Rather than being genre-less, The Mumlers, a San Jose band on their second album, have made an album that straddles New Orleans jazz, New York indie, 60s pop (Beatles, Kinks) and filtered it all through a Doors-like vibe.
If that sounds like a modernised Tom Waits to you, you’d be right, although the music here is way more accessible than most of Waits’ canon. Like The Walkmen or Gomez, The Mumlers are entirely comfortable to reach back more than 30 to 40 years for their influences and instrumentation – the brass componentry is high, and delicious, combined with nicely cheesy funked up organ.
Front man Will Sprott is a wonderfully lazy delight – his voice perfectly complements this wonderful collage. You’ll get 70s cop shows, 60s film soundtracks – all the way to noughties indie.
Don’t Throw Me Away will be one of the more unusual albums in your collection, but there is no sense that this was done artfully or archly – it is a perfectly considered masterpiece.
Rating 9/10
Mike Rea
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