Motel Motel
Honestly, I don’t understand why more people haven’t picked up on Motel Motel’s debut EP Old York yet. This band is one of Brooklyn’s best kept secrets, rocking anthemic go-for-the-throat hooks with timeless country twang, like Wolf Parade tearing apart a dirty old honky-tonk. Sure, they’re a young band, they’ve been together for less than two years, and half of them are still in college. But in this new-fangled internet age, with bands like Black Kids and Vampire Weekend going indie-supernova on the strength of four-song demo CD-Rs, it’s kinda surprising how far under the radar these guys have stayed.
With the upcoming release of their first full-length, New Denver, I doubt Motel Motel will be staying under the radar for much longer. Now they’ve added some delicate strings to the mix, giving their new songs a greater sense of elegance and grandeur without losing any of the drunken confidence and cocaine swagger that made Old York so damn awesome.
“Virginia Kids” starts soft and slow, with singer Eric Engel crooning like a country gentleman with three-day stubble and a loosened necktie. Then over the next seven minutes it gains momentum, builds to a climax, crashes, subsides, builds again, and finally dissipates into nothing, like one of those long songs from the middle section of Modest Mouse’s The Moon and Antarctica.
“Pedal Steel” is a more reserved number, with a long, sinuous melody winding around a gentle shuffle and cascades of strings that sound like they were lifted from a 1930s Hollywood musical. Once again, Engel’s raspy vocal stands front and center, as he sings about panoramic American landscapes with a world-weariness that makes it hard to believe he was studying psychology at the New School less than a year ago.
“Mexico,” the final track off Old York, is a breezy country-rock number that channels pretty much everything that’s cool about the Grateful Dead and features one of the most infectious choruses of 2007. Turn it up loud, roll the windows down, and drive west into the sunset. And just try not to sing along. I dare you.
Audio: Virginia Kids
Audio: Pedal Steel
Audio: Mexico
