Courtesy
The cover of single "Skinny Kids"
Local hicksters El Campo, whose 2014 release Remember received high praise from Current contributor James Courtney, and ridicule for said high praise, have released their first single since the impressive debut, entitled "Skinny Kids." Popmatters, the influential online music editorial, has picked up the single.
The whine and whinny of the steel guitar, the rain-on-a-tin-outhouse-roof pluck of the five string banjo and the trebly, troubled tenor of singer-songwriter Jerid Morris make for a sound exclusive to the quintet – as if the contemplative, woe-is-me whimpers and words of alternative emo were distilled in the early oughts by Morris' first band Muldoon, left to age in Kentucky bourbon barrels to reach ripeness upon Morris' most recent releases.
The band will, presumably, be most appreciated by those raised up on country music, particularly anything prior to 1990, and/or bands such as The Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring or Cursive vocalist Tim Kasher's side project The Good Life. El Campo fill in the wide open spaces between '90s emotional punk and The Statler Brothers with their three-part harmonies and predilection for scenic soundscapes and rustic, rural Oh-pining on the nature of the contemporary love affair. Their songs often contain entire a cappella verses that echo the lonesomeness of the prairie and Morris' emotional state, upon the time of their writing. Perhaps, if this single and corresponding record does well, he won't be pining all alone for long.
The single "Skinny Kids" can be heard here.
