Portland, Oregon is a Seattle-like hotbed of musical creativity, with The Decemberists, Modest Mouse, The Shins, Sleater-Kinney and Elliott Smith to alphabetically-name but a few all hailing from there. Joining such illustrious company are folktronica five-piece Blitzen Trapper, absorbing their Rose City locale and influences like northwest American couscous. Of their geographical bedfellows, The Shins are particularly channelled on the latest of Blitzen Trapper’s many mostly-free releases, the Black River Killer EP.
The title track is a typically bluesy narrative with a No Country for Old Men-style plotline. Black River Killer is a Bob Dylan-style tale of sin and unredemption, with a voice getting on for Dylan’s gravelly delivery. The guitar work is excellent, particularly the electric guitar that comes filtering through in stabs past the first chorus; they reek of Sgt. Pepper’s Reprise, disclosing early the heavy imprint of The Beatles upon the EP. Silver Moon’s harmonica line is poppy – verging on a Love Me Do-style motif – and revels in its bluesy hookishness. It dips into an unassuming verse, before seemingly realising its mistake, quickly followed as this section is by a second go with its main hook. As well as being very Beatles-y, Blitzen Trapper also come across as rather Shins-y; it could be argued you could barely sound like one without sounding like the other. Blitzen are most strongly reminiscent of The Shins kooky folkish moments, the feel of infiltration of analogue instruments by digital counterparts most worthy of comment. Going Down takes a slightly more electronic tact from its fiddly synth intro onwards, in which the lyric of “It’s loose lips sinking ships tonight” sounds like a typically James Mercerish turn, especially whilst synths burble around in the background as the track halts unexpectedly. For better or for worse it sounds a lot like MGMT’s Weekend Wars in its general pace and looped, spiralling keyboards. Words are abandoned Phantom Limb-style in favour of ‘oohs’ in a largely anonymous outro, which frankly is where the rot sets in for the Black River Killer EP.

Aside from a stammering lyrical metre reminiscent of Because, Shoulder Full of You is astoundingly dull. It brightens up very slightly in a wordless section of chorus-like function, but the lyrics deal exclusively in cliché; “Like a crow that’s lost its sight, like a day without a...” oh I really can’t be arsed it’s such a blatantly obvious and unoriginal rhyme. The dreadfully-named Preacher’s Sister’s Boy features a great synth line in another wordless chorus which just about manages to save the track from being a second non-event. It’s again Beatles-y in its brief, buoyantly poppish structure, but the seriously excellent chorus sounds abject in a track that’s completely forgettable. Black Rock mistakes dull and uneventful for low-key and moody, and although the rolling guitar riff is well-played, it fails entirely to stick in the mind. The track concludes even more briefly than Preacher’s Sister’s Boy, but without an upbeat hook to its name, it falls much flatter. Thankfully Big Black Bird fares far, far better, its classic rock guitar riff and squealing harmonica line supporting Eric Earley’s Paul McCartney-aping vocal, which is all pretty good fun. Big Black Bird however – with its strident southern rock riff and immediate vocals – feels slightly incongruous in the context of a largely subdued EP.

It’s potentially an interesting sound that Blitzen Trapper have themselves, vintage folk backed up by digital bleepings. Is this folk for the iPod generation? That’s kind of doubtful; ‘middle of the road’ sounds like a crushing criticism if incorrectly used, but is fairly accurate when applied to Blitzen Trapper. Yeah it’s folk with some electronica attached, but the electronic moments never truly sound integral to the tracks, more afterthoughts or embellishments. They’re most likely there to set Blitzen Trapper apart from the crowd (heavyweights such as Fleet Foxes, Wilco, Bright Eyes and so forth), but only succeed in sounding like keyboard preset sounds being played over fairly decent folk music, and so if anything detract from the overall experience. There is the niggling doubt that much of this will really hook in the mind; apart from the bookending tracks and one or two other moments, very little else is truly worthy of note.

By David Hall

Rating: 6 /10
Format: EP
Label: Sub Pop
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