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Hubcap City (From Belgium), "Superlocalhellfreakride"
Hubcap City (FB) is a five-piece ensemble that features among others Bill Taft of Smoke and Will Fratesi, who has played in both Tenement Halls and Cat Power. Recorded in tunnels, under bridges, and in cemeteries around Atlanta, this shambling album unfortunately doesn't live up to its intriguing promise.
To be honest, I didn't care for a lot of the vocals on this album. Lackadaisical and sometimes purposefully off-key, many of these would have benefited from another take or two. The lyrics are quirky but too often fall on the sillier side of absurdity, and because of this it can be hard not to dismiss them entirely. Even so, there are a couple of the more conventional songs that I like, such as "Bottle of Rum," "Rehab," and the haunting "Arabella Sabotage."
While the acoustic guitar playing on the album is more or less standard fare, a lot of the other music is quite enjoyable when the group indulges their experimental tendencies, like when they drone, groan, and moan with horns, chains, and electronics on the instrumental "He Brings the Hatchet in the Evening." I like them best when they engage with their environment directly, as is the case on "Boxcar Gamelan" when they and 'various drunk strangers' bang out layers of snaking rhythms. Even the minor contributions from "Guy on Street" explaining that everyone has certain guaranteed rights or discussing the jungle rot from Vietnam on his feet give a good sense of place through the people that inhabit it. Yet this album isn't quite the tour of subterranean Atlanta that I had hoped for, and I can't help but feel that it misses an opportunity to share the city's weirdly unique culture with a wider audience.
