Uncas

Full of wild and moonshiny country music that strays deeply into the psychedelic, bursting with compositional imagination and layered singing sweeter than smoked beef, Sunny Uncas is why certain indie bands get written about and others are left in the dust of basement bitterness. Northern Alberta’s the Uncas creatively roam from Devo to Steve Earle to the Flying Burritos, from hokey to strokey to folkie to jokey, but with an impressive hand of pop cards that deals something knowable. Entertainingly chaotic, their earnest songs are neither derivative nor predictable. A spastic drum solo can leap out as easily as a chorus of wild men hitting a note that makes your eyes grin. It’s theatrical, not jockish. "Big City Sickness” is an impossibly good barnstormer, considering it’s full of ape grunts and the Ween lyrics later on don’t go unnoticed, believe me. Importantly, all this is build on solid musical ground, played with the calloused hands of actual rural-ites.