Fat Possum

Your typical alt-country bar band audience isn’t going to be all that enthralled with frictionless, esoteric fare, just like your average psychedelic, art-rock crowd isn’t going to go gaga for thoroughly down-to-earth music. Two EPs and a pair of albums into their career, Athens, Ga.‘s Futurebirds have a pretty solid grasp on how to split the difference. Baba Yaga – their first Fat Possum release – has a little something for everyone who’s ever found anything to like on The Byrds’ iconic 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Baba Yaga unfolds at a languid pace
without losing its rock attack. Some of the shaggy, occasionally surreal songwriting even makes room for red-blooded, countrified hooks. But it’s the spindly Telecaster figures and the crystalline arcs of steel guitar – all of it positively doused in reverb – that do the most for the album’s allure.