If you placed Nana Grizol, The Front Bottoms and The Hotelier in a blender and seasoned them with acoustic guitars, throaty emo vocals and the odd mathy flourish then you would get a horrible gloopy mess, or worse, some kind of hideous mutant thing. So instead of playing Finster, we suggest you listen to Bobby’s Oar.
There is no oar, and probably no Bobby. Rather, Bobby’s Oar is Greg Hughes and friends from Orlando, Florida. Hughes has now moved to Seattle, but before leaving he managed to record his début album The Weeds in Your Garden which came out this month. Coincidentally, Hughes is also in the band Among Giants, who we reviewed back in 2012 saying:
“There is some shouting, some emotion and some sounds that would fit nicely on the soundtrack of Tony Hawk 2. In other words, all the things you could want in an album”
While Bobby’s Oar is a change of direction, the above points still apply, which has to go down as a win. You could describe The Weeds In Your Garden as Americana or punk or indie-folk but a mixture of all three gets a little closer to reality. This is clear from opener ‘Into the Woods’, a slow-burner which explodes into an exuberant chorus of ‘oohhs!’ or ‘whoas!’ mid-way through, showing that the emo melancholy is more than balanced by a genuine joy. ‘Highway 95’ is more restrained, showing that the melancholy is more than real too:
“Because its nights like these when I’m alone,
that make me wish I had more time,
to spend alone.
And there’s a point with your friends,
when they don’t seem like friends.
So I head out and take a deep breath.
It’s just this city, I say”
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‘Turtle Bay’ soon ramps things up again though, a boisterous clatter of instruments and triumphant trombone supporting Hughes’ gruff vocals. ‘Heart’ comes off as a half-frenzied unloading of thoughts, especially the part “so watch me as my world comes crashing down”, (you’ll know when you hear it), a half-glorious sweaty sing-a-long, you can just imagine an entire room proclaiming “but I didn’t mean to break your heart!” Other standouts include ‘Shoestrings’, a frenetic Americana song with some finger-shredding guitar, ‘Flatlands’, which starts off wistful before growing into something defiant a la Paul Baribeau, and ‘Worn-Out Fretboard’, the closing song which teeters on the edge of hardcore with its screamy/shouty vocals.
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You can get The Weeds In Your Garden now on a handmade CD or a pay-what-you-can basis via the Bobby’s Oar Bandcamp page. You also get it on cassette via Ronald Records!