Canadian band The Sadies has been genre-bending for almost two decades, and its 16th studio album has splintered country, folk and garage-band rock together in a mesmerizing way. “Internal Sounds,” produced by member Dallas Good and released by Outside Music, feels equal parts Avett Brothers, Social Distortion and Neil Young. In “The First Five Minutes,” the games of children and the fatalism in adulthood are juxtaposed in lyrics like “cross your fingers when you tell your lies … cross your heart and hope to die.” The track “STORY 19” sounds vaguely Spaghetti Western, but “We Are Circling” is a strangely haunting chant-rock, and “So Much Blood” is all twang. Influences are juggled wildly as the album progresses, leaving the listener a little harried, but there’s a sense of genuine enjoyment in how The Sadies does its strange — if you need to label them — alt-country thing.
Review: The Sadies, “Internal Sounds”
September 18, 2013