Let’s just cut to the chase: East Of Yesterday is one heck of a good record. Sweet melodies, rockin’ guitars, irresistible hooks, twangy steel and fiddle, knowing lyrics, and straight-ahead singing combine to form a string of fine songs propelled by a great sound.
Hailing from New York City, the Hangdogs are singer and primary songwriter Matthew Grimm, drummer Kevin Baier, bassist JC Chmiel and lead guitarist Automatic Slim. Like a lot of their audience, these guys seem to have grown up on rock ‘n’ roll and then gained an appreciation for country music somewhere along the way. So it makes sense that their sound is at once rooted in the rock of the early Rolling Stones and at home with the honky tonk of early George Jones. Yessir, this is honest alt.country music, with no apologies and no reason for them.
In “The Ring”, Grimm tells a coming-of-age story in which the narrator sells his record collection. For this character, music is no longer the most important thing in life: “Dwight Yoakam taught me honky tonk could rock and roll again/Steve Earle sang me through nights of rain and tears/Gear Daddies took me back home like a letter never sent/But it all seems like another life since she appeared.” The lyrics go on to name-check Buddy Holly, Bruce Springsteen and Dave Alvin., but it’s more than just a roll call of influences — it’s a very good song,
Too often, alt.country records tend to be samey or jokey, but East Of Yesterday is neither. The songs are quite varied, from the mid-tempo rock of the opening “One More’s Gone” to the out-and-out swing of the closing “They Don’t Play No Country Music On The East Side Of New York”. In between, the Hangdogs pull out rockabilly, a good dose of twangy rock, and some straight country in the form of a duet (with guest vocalist Barbara Broussal) on the beautiful “In My Dreams”.
And while the songs exhibit cleverness and irony, they aren’t mere novelty numbers, either in their lyrics or their tone. The opening verse of “I’d Call To Say I Love You” offers an example: “Well the work ain’t bad, hell it pays the rent/And keeps my fool mind otherwise occupied till day’s end/And the overtime goes a good way to a drink or two or four/And I’d call to say I love you but I don’t no more.” It’s clever, but it doesn’t come across as a joke.
East Of Yesterday doesn’t have a single bad song on it, and it’s a fun record to listen to. Repeatedly.