Agriculture Club

While most contemporary trends in alt-country tend towards the earnest and the sparse, Calgary’s Agriculture Club sow their sonic seeds with the hard-hitting ferocity of a drunken tractor fight. This latest full-length effort from the Stetson-sporting quartet kicks off with a muscled-up, spaghetti western-style instrumental lifted straight out of the Ennio Morricone songbook before being doused in purple gasoline and set ablaze in the burning barrel. A triptych of trucking songs follows, each one written and presented with enough knowing confidence to suggest these Cowtowners have probably run real rigs through a dozen-or-so gears on more than a few occasions. The band maintain a keen balance between rip-snorting rock and wailing twang throughout the disc’s dozen tracks without getting bogged down in formulaic ground. Though the tunes are typically informed with humour, a prevailing element of reverence indicates these guys take their rock a little more seriously than appearances may suggest.