More West by Combwalker

For fans of Sentries, My Wife’s an Angel, Shearling, the current wave of country and post hardcore fusion, and the horrifyingly damaging lie of manifest destiny, More West by Combwalker continues this unique noise rock band’s mission to expose the absurdity of the mythologized American West. As the title of this EP suggests, Combwalker here directly expands the worldbuilding of their recent album Goin’ West, a dark, sarcastic narrative about a settler from the frontier era uncovering all the horrors of life in the West while struggling through the unglamorous life of subsistence agriculture. Like Cervantes pointing out the absurdity of feudal chivalry in Don Quixote, these two records together show us the disastrous extremes of American self-reliance, revealing this lifestyle as a genuine crime with real victims. Flourishes from western swing, vocals from art rock, crescendos from post rock, and climaxes steeped in noise rock energy replicate the same spirit that motivates oversized personal pick up trucks and enormous monocultured front lawns, all leading our lyrical protagonist into deeper sociopathy and an eventual violent downfall.