Soo Line Loons won't keep you very long on their eponymous third album and may just have a little bit more to offer than surely the most curious of band names to cross your path this year. The nine tracks weighing in a couple of minutes short of the half hour mark is enough time for this Minnesota-based Americana band to soak you in their raucous blend of fast paced earthy music drawing on facets of fully blown tub thumping folk rock forever tipping a nod in a blues direction and expressly inspired story telling.
For the record, Soo Line Loons draw their name from a local railroad in their home state and probably are a little surprised to see their album cross the waves to the land of the Tube, trains notoriously late and a rail network forever flitting between private and public ownership. Putting an international time division to one side, music knows no boundaries and there is a ready made audience for the style of this band should they ever wish to drop their noted day jobs and spread the wings.
On a more practical level, this album (another post-pandemic success in execution) does have many moments to reward your investment. A couple of tracks in, you'll get hooked on 'Can't Stop Singing the Blues' which is true to the word of its title. There is a thread of rawness and a live energy permeating through the veins, whether the musical sound leans towards the strings of banjo, violin and guitar or the brass that reverberates around 'Die Young' like some retro rocker.
The album's peak from the perceptive viewpoint of impressive appeal lies in the moderating track 'What They Don't Tell You'. Its prevailing mood may not define the record, but its welcome deviation resonates in reception. Ending with a ballad titled 'Amen' hardly racks up points in the originality scale, but it joins the earlier mentioned track of doing exactly what it says on the tin, and conclusively so.
The real treat is for the sweaty venue goers of Minneapolis who get the chance to savour Soo Line Loons. However a vivid imagination of letting this album surround your senses in a living room still presents good value. If you like discovering new music that most people in your life will never hear and simultaneously revel in that sense of free wheeling independence, then there is no harm in adding this album to your list.
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