It's not hard to imagine Alamo Race Track sitting around a run-down house in the Netherlands (that's where they're from), telling each other stories, picking up their instruments to play a little something, and then getting another drink and wandering off to look at the sunrise. This is, in fact, the aesthetic of the wildly popular YouTube clip for the title track of their new record, Black Cat John Brown (Minty Fresh; July 24, 2007), which has been viewed over 430,000 times: the band and a few fans are crammed into a tiny room, the band strumming out the song on acoustic guitars. The song was also just featured on ABC's Grey's Anatomy.
Black Cat John Brown combines familiar sounds in unfamiliar ways, like several radio stations playing all at once. Some tracks have an identifiable post punk syncopation (most notably the absolutely scorching "Northern Territory"), others are more like echoy, countrified blues ("Black Cat John Brown"), and still more are fairly difficult to classify: a quieter Pixies, early Radiohead with pizzicato strings, Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips with The Strokes, and more. At all times, the tracks are aggressively melodic, frenetic, and driving.
Formed in Amsterdam in 2001 when the band, then called Redivider, lost their keyboard player but decided to change their name and carry on, Alamo Race Track have already developed a devoted following in Europe and beyond. They are veterans of several major international music festivals (SXSW, The Netherlands' Lowlands Festival, and more), have appeared on numerous French television shows, and garnered glowing reviews in the Dutch press. Let's close, though, with some US praise, from The Austin Chronicle about their appearance at 2007's South By Southwest: "Alamo Race Track. . . spills blood on the tracks with the shake 'n' bake of Silkworm and Jesus Lizard."
The end of 2010 saw Alamo Race Track putting the finishing touches to their new LP – entitled Unicorn Loves Deer. This will be rolled out to the general public in March 2011, and will be the result of both a revamped line-up (new member in the shape of drummer Robin Buijs) and a determination not to rest on the laurels of their last LP, 2006's Black Cat John Brown; a record which cemented ART's reputation as masterful purveyors of multidimensional pop.
It's been said before that Alamo Race Track are adept at drawing on multiple sources to inform their sound. A new song off the record, Hypnotised, – recorded for webzine De Speech – shows how ART are masters at putting a simple melody through its paces -courtesy of two versions of this song, a "Day" and "Night" version no less…
If this snippet is anything to go by, the band seems to be toying with a Midwest sound, what with dreamy paeans to Moon & Sun, and vocal harmonics that are balanced against gentle instrumental descends and carefully balanced cadences. Now and again the listener also gets a feeling that a raucous campfire sing-along is just about to break out; a trick that the band have always been brilliant at conjuring up. ART's soulful melancholy is very noticeable too: the night version of Hypnotised seems to nod to the dreamier work of Mercury Rev, and at times, this writer was wondering where he'd put his copy of Harvest. Not long to wait now…
