Quantcast
Music
cover art

The Lonesome Heroes

Don't Play to Lose

(Floodwater; US: 30 Mar 2006; UK: Unavailable)

The Lonesome Heroes hail from Austin by way of Brooklyn. As such, the group touts themselves as country music with a psychedelic slant. They are neither as epic nor stoned as the Flying Burrito Brothers or the Beachwood Sparks, but hints of Mazzy Star and Galaxie 500 shoegaze meanderings are present. The Lonesome Heroes’ haze is closer to sunstroke when objects start to take on a wobbly, oil-slicked outline. On the EP Don’t Play to Lose, Rich Russell details the cold, hard country facts with a steady lead guitar and punctuated vocals while Landry McLean’s highly polished resonator and heavy lap steel reverb create a watery distortion that floats through each track. The resulting layered fuzzy contrast is what drives their sound. The tracks “The Moon and the Sun” and “Oyster” highlight McLean’s haunting and captivating vocal that sound like she snuck away from the campfire in the middle of the night to record. The five tracks are not enough to determine if the Lonesome Heroes can by carried by more than McLean’s steel, but keeps you adequately interested to see what will come.

Rating:

Comments
Now on PopMatters
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  3. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  4. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  5. Bored This Way: The 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Features)
  6. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  7. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  8. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  9. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  10. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  11. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  12. Van Halen: A Different Kind of Truth (Reviews)
  13. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  14. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  15. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  16. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  17. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  18. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  19. Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro: A Rock Star’s Midlife Crisis or Valid Literature? (Features)
  20. Rating the Performances at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Mixed Media)
  21. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  22. A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in 'Mad Men' (Features)
  23. The 10 Best John Coltrane Solos (Sound Affects)
  24. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  25. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
  26. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral (Reviews)
  27. Your Anti-Valentine's Day Playlist. (Mixed Media)
  28. Mitt Romney Can Reside at Today's Proverbial 'Downton Abbey'... Newt Gingrich Cannot (Features)
  29. After Cease to Exist: The Far-from-Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (Features)
  30. Die Antwoord: Ten$ion (Reviews)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.