20 Miles

Judah Bauer is best known as Jon Spencer’s guitar wrangling comrade in his Blues Explosion trio, but he’s been pumping out more 20 Miles records over the last few years than his "day job" band. Recorded at London’s Toe Rag studios, now famous for the White Stripes’ Elephant album, this album follows closely in the same steps of last year’s Keep It Coming outing, with the focus on laid-back tunes that ride the line between slacker indie rock and Stones-inspired blues. The general sound is warm and stands in very stark contrast to his wild skronk fests of yesteryear, and songs like "Unquiet Glam" serve as the audio version of comfort food leaving the listener with a drowsy, fuzzy feeling. The tempo and energy level is very slow and lazy, but things get a very welcome and speedy kick in the pants on the song "Everybody Knows My Name.” Overall, the record is exceedingly down-beat, but if you like blues-y Dinosaur Jr.-esque rock to drift off to sleep to, this is the record for you.