Radar Bros Reviews

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And The Surrounding Mountains
After 1999's The Singing Hatchet album, The Radar Brothers' Jim Putnam rebuilt his studio, renamed it Phase III and produced another set of songs packed with gentle Neil Young-isms and big, widescreen productions. With a sound like the sun coming up over the praire, Putnam's sad-eyed take on alt-country is comfortable enough at first glance, but there's a dark undertow to these vignettes. "Too bad the sisters couldn't stay," he muses cryptically on Sisters. "They're missing for a week...from here the weapons look clean." The sky gets cloudier on the dramtic Mountains, until Morning Song closes the record on a slightly more settled note. Delicately twisted, but a record of considerable beauty.
4/5 | Martin O'Gorman | Q