So I was gonna start this review off with something witty like, “Who the fuck does that Will Johnson think he is,” and add some additional witty comments but it just didn’t seem right. Not considering the excellent new double split album featuring Johnson’s bands Centro-matic and South San Gabriel. Sure, I could have made a little joke and injected this too-often stale blog with some much needed levity, but (alas) I’ll just stick to inaccurately describing the music I love.
So the album is called Dual Hawks and it’s pretty great, but then again so is almost everything that Will Johnson releases. The Centro-matic half (as you might well excpect) sounds pretty much like typical Centro-matic; fuzzed-out alt-country with more hooks than a tackle box. Like J. Mascis, Neil Young, and Joe Pernice getting together to kick Ryan Adams’ scrawny little piece-of-shit ass. Yeah, something like that. It isn’t something that will blow you away, but (rather) wash over you like a warm breeze and a golden twilight just like Fort Recovery did. It’s familiar if only because Johnson’s own heart beats to (or even is) the pulse of all post-Tupelo alt-country.
I’m easily a bigger fan of the more bombastic Centro-matic half of Dual Hawks, but Johnson & company as South San Gabriel (even if 180 degrees different) ain’t half bad either. In fact, both “halves” of Dual Hawks work well as balancing counterpoints to one another. I’d actually suggest shuffling randomly between both discs. South San Gabriel is more late night to Centro-matic’s afternoon histrionics. Quieter and more atmospheric, more acoustic and subtler, there is a calming Southwestern beauty to many of SSG’s songs.
Dual Hawks is a rare double album full of both quantity and quality with little room for filler of any sort between the two remarkably consistent (if stylistically different) personas of Mr. Will Johnson. Out now on Misra.
MP3 | Centro-matic – Two Seats Gold Reserved Dual Hawks
MP3 | South San Gabriel – My Goodbyes Dual Hawks
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