Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter - Marble Son (Fargo, 2011)

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter
Marble Son
Fargo
2011

Rating: 6.5 LSD-laced grilled cheeses out of 10

I listened to the ever-loving shit out of the second Jesse Sykes record "Oh, My Girl", but I honestly hadn't given her a ton of thought until coming across this newest release by her called "Marble Son". To be honest, it didn't grab me as instantly as "Oh, My Girl", but few things in life have. All of the same root pieces are there but the songs aren't as immediately catchy. No, this album is a slow burner, one that slowly seeps into your psyche, burrows in there like some of those house eating bees, and just eats away at your brain...but, you know, in a good way. Imagine having your brain slowly eaten away by bugs in a positive fashion, like, if they were smiling the whole time or something.

The more I listen to it, the more this record sounds like a female-fronted Grateful Dead album. The double vocals, the intertwining, noodly guitar lines...you can just see a girl in a sun dress and a ton of armpit hair spinning in circles to these songs. The song "servant Of Your Vision" might be the most perfect example of this sound on the record, but all of the songs roughly fit this description. Some may find this description off-putting. Hell, I probably would if I wasn't the one making it, but I'm enjoying the album, hippieness be damned.