It felt genuinely strained to say anything newly hyperbolic about Blitzen Trapper’s last release, as it seemed a defined point in a meteoric rise; on this album, Furr, their label debut, it is bordering on impossible. What happens from opening to close over forty minutes dawns on the senses like a series of tiny rebirths, all of them unique, each one warranted. The meteoric rise is still finding its acme.
What was missing from Field Rexx was a true signature song, something to stand up on its own hind legs; on their following record, Wild Mountain Nation, Blitzen Trapper managed that with the blistering title track. What Furr has to offer that its predecessor did not, though, is a wider, more satisfying breadth of songs, from staple country and western to pure '70s album rock and beyond. The title track is an astounding piece of neo-Americana, rich in vocalist Eric Early’s sultry back road range and cryptic sentiments; on “God + Suicide” that range is complemented with the band’s most evident stand-up-and-take-notice songcraft yet. It is riveting. The band goes for a murder ballad with “Black River Killer” and doesn’t exactly miss their mark. The terrifically craven noise noodling that roughed up the edges of their previous work can be found in abbreviated form on “Love U.” There are songs that sound like Blitzen Trapper standards (“Sleepy Time In The Western World”) and others that have no real antecedent in their catalog (“Lady On The Water”). If they’ve already earned purists, then maybe someone will quibble; no matter, work like Furr is sure to enliven anyone out there who wasn’t aware of them already.
While Furr reminds you of Heart’s Dreamboat Annie sprawled on the broad lawn of cool country and southern rock, it has a thoroughly modern flavor to it. It wants to be modest—needlessly, say—but the brash truth about Blitzen Trapper is that something out there is destined to make them stars. This record might be it.
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