Listening to "Ontological Intercourse," the opening track from Gun Outfit's fifth LP, Out of Range, it's apparent that the L.A.-via-Olympia group aren't your average Americana band. As a lo-fi synthesizer buzz kicks off the aforementioned five-minute track, Gun Outfit co-vocalist Dylan Sharp quotes Ovid's Metamorphosis, giving the Orpheus myth a modern day, gritty overhaul.
Having started out as a grinding post-punk band, Gun Outfit know how to sound murky and dank, but it's their literary slant and patient delivery, along with Sharp's baritone and Caroline Keith's vocal style that make Gun Outfit's latest their strongest to date. Throughout the album's 11 tracks and over 42 minutes of music, the quartet manage to brood their way through numerous artistic themes, from Bruegel the Elder to Samuel Beckett, running each through a Western American scope.
Gone are the distortion pedals and feedback, but Sharp and Keith still keep an indie rock slant, giving tracks like "Landscape Painter" and "Primacy of Love" imperfect but textural guitar playing that adds an extra weight to their grit. And sonically stylized tracks like "The 101" and "Second Decade" demonstrate that there aren't many bands making music right now with a clearer vision that Gun Outfit.
(Paradise)Having started out as a grinding post-punk band, Gun Outfit know how to sound murky and dank, but it's their literary slant and patient delivery, along with Sharp's baritone and Caroline Keith's vocal style that make Gun Outfit's latest their strongest to date. Throughout the album's 11 tracks and over 42 minutes of music, the quartet manage to brood their way through numerous artistic themes, from Bruegel the Elder to Samuel Beckett, running each through a Western American scope.
Gone are the distortion pedals and feedback, but Sharp and Keith still keep an indie rock slant, giving tracks like "Landscape Painter" and "Primacy of Love" imperfect but textural guitar playing that adds an extra weight to their grit. And sonically stylized tracks like "The 101" and "Second Decade" demonstrate that there aren't many bands making music right now with a clearer vision that Gun Outfit.