White Denim: Corsicana Lemonade
White Denim borrow from the same pool of Southern rock, soul, prog-rock and jazz as the average jamband, but they’ve avoided that descriptor with their stylistic jumpiness and whiplash-inducing rhythmic turns. While they may have somewhat erratically tossed around a greater assortment of tones and genres in the past, Corsicana Lemonade finds White Denim hitting their stride with a focused, potent batch awash in down-South sunshine and lip-puckering fuzz. They’ve abandoned some of their funky art-punk bite in favor of melted-butter soul grooves, good-time rockers and psych-blues breakdowns, which leaves the partially Jeff Tweedy-assisted set less forceful and challenging than their past work. It’s notably more grounded and straight-ahead, which is different but mostly not a detractor. Fantastically restless drummer Joshua Block tones it down this time, but it’s his consummate grasp of rhythm that ties together the mathematically calibrated riffing, genre fusions, noodling leads and jazz chords under James Petralli’s elastic vocals. The band’s pure satisfaction is apparent through every track, and it’s contagious.