American Music Club - The Golden Age

(Cooking Vinyl)

AMERICANA

Terminal romantics Mark Eitzel and AMC have been breaking hearts and taking names for over 20 years and still manage to turn out new albums that surprise with songs that are utterly evocative, fragile, dry, witty and truly human.

The spit and growl of 2004’s Love Songs for Patriots was their first after a decade-long hiatus and sounded like a band getting something off their chest. This finds the band’s original core pared down to Eitzel and guitarist Vudi, and is more gentle and reflective as a result.

Less pompous than Costello, less scholarly that Cave, even more self-conscious than Harvey, Eitzel remains a singularly great songwriter and this showcases at least half a dozen more of his grade-A classics.