I first encountered Portland band Blitzen Trapper the night they opened for the Hold Steady back in May of this year. First impression? Great, in a kind of Whiskeytown hanging out on the Haight back when that still meant something sort of way. At the set's apex, they reminded me of a modernized Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with a little more acid around the edges, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to any American band. Their music oozes with that organic, front porch feeling of lost Midwestern summers and cornfield beer bashes. I liked it enough to make the following proclamation on my blog:

“When their album Wild Mountain Nation is released on June 12, you'd do well to procure yourself a copy. Although I'm sure by then Pitchfork will have featured it in their ‘Best New Music’ category and you'll have forgotten all about me mentioning them here. Oh well.”

Two weeks after I penned that particular passage, Pitchfork added “Wild Nation Mountain” to their roster of “Best New Music,” giving it a stratospheric 8.5/10 rating.

Am I some sort of prophetic soothsayer? Nah. Like Petty himself once said, “Even the losers get lucky sometimes.”

The album is indeed a throw-down good time. It’s what I imagine was blasting out of jacked-up Chevy Novas up and down the strip of some small Wisconsin town back in 1972 between the Allman Brothers and the Mothers of Invention from the local college radio station. I mention Zappa’s band of rabble-rousers because Blitzen Trapper isn’t just some nostalgic revivalist act. There are enough free jazz freak-outs (“Woof & Warp Of The Quiet Giant's Hem”), warped but sunny psychedelic pop darts (“Sci-Fi Kid”) and Sonic Youthed forays into New York cool (“Hot Tip/Tough Cub”) to make sure of that. Portland, huh I gotta get over there sometime.

Scott T. Sterling is Music editor for Metromix Los Angeles.

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