I’m in a period where I’m low on money but high on pre-summer spirit so between grumbling over concerts I couldn’t attend I try to go to as many free gigs as possible. Therefore I didn’t want to miss Frontier Ruckus playing at Debaser Slussen. Some may pass this Michigan-based band off as riders of the big American folk-wave but I hear something sincere in their music that shouldn’t be dismissed too easily. They know how to write bittersweet tales of both the joys and the gloom of everyday life in the homestate and their expression is not too far from that of Frightened Rabbit, with whom they incidentally will end up next to in your iTunes artist list. But musically they’re of the same mopey Americana breed as Bright Eyes.
I’m not too sure if they translate their elaborate songs well enough live, despite featuring Zachary Nichols sitting on a suitcase playing both the trumpet and the saw to great effect, the latter instrument which makes me recall San Diego’s equally wistful indie rock outfit The Black Heart Procession. Maybe it’s just that halfway through the set I got this extreme stomach ache coming from nowhere. It must’ve been something I ate because I don’t wish to believe that Frontier Ruckus were dull enough to make my stomach twist around. They end the set by playing acoustically down on the floor of the venue, which was quite uncrowded for the evening. That act really displays this band’s honest and down-to-earth approach to playing music, but with the feeling of someone slashing my stomach open from the inside I think I failed to catch the charm in that.
I don’t know. Maybe I would’ve been more impressed and emotionally engaged if I’d seen them play some local Michigan bar where they’d be greeted as homecoming champions of the lake state melancholia and people knew the songs and sang along and if I didn’t have had to be concerned about a possibly dangerous stomach situation. The thing is I really like their music and it’s not just that Fleet Foxes with their second, fantastic album Helplessness Blues have thrown me once again into one of those periods where I relentlessly love all things American and rootsy and listen to a lot of that stuff. Their debut album, The Orion Songbook is a very overlooked gem in the ongoing post-Fleet-Foxes-debut-album-hype over American folklore. Especially as The Orion Songbook arrived later in the same year as Fleet Foxes. And I would recommend seeing them live after all. You may be surprised and you may be more carried away with their emotionally dense folk rock than I was.
Listen to their debut album The Orion Songbook on Spotify!
And watch a beautiful outdoors performance of their song Dark Autumn Hour from their debut album The Orion Songbook below!
