VINYL OF THE MONTH
Antlered Aunt Lord
Ostensibly Formerly Stunted (and on fire)
Athens, GA
(HHBTM Records)
“A mysteriously melodic collection years in the making…”
If the reports are to be believed, then AAL’s Jesse Stinnard is either a bizarre genius that Athens has been hiding for the past decade, or an equally bizarre manifestation of said genius’s cosmic brain waves. Er, where was I? Oh yes, the new vinyl release by this “band” from Athens. Well, let’s not bury the lead any further: it’s a friggin’ winner.
Melodic, oddly dark and inviting, and at times invitingly grating (yep, that makes sense), the record is an amalgam of tracks culled from (if we believe what we’re told) hundreds of songs in Stinnard’s crazy backlog. There are so many damn songs it’s hard to tell where you are at any given time in the tracklist, but that’s kinda what’s bat-shit awesomesauce about the journey. Records aren’t typically made that way (usually for good reason), but the experimentation is oddly enveloping in a fuzzed-out acid-trip sorta way.
Nominally, it’s a shoegaze-meets-noisepop-meets-punk album. Well, sorta. If inexplicable Pavement-esque stabbings at warbling rock n roll float your boat, this is gonna give you an instant pants-tent.
It’s hard to say too much more about the record. It’s weird. It’s fun. It’s catchy (seriously) and it doesn’t seem to take much for granted when it comes to standard songwriting formats. We dig eccentric shit like this. Can’t wait to hear the rest of the backlog, Jesse.
Follow on Twitter @HHBTMrecs