Normally the term "Bar Band", is a derisory one, and for good reason. Believe me I have seen bands perform dives from Amsterdam, Holland to Albany, New York, and a good 70% seem to be part of a worldwide experiment. The experiment being to see if you can get weird, skinny, bearded guys laid before they are thirty by having them play bass badly.

Then there are those bands that the term "Bar" gravitates towards because their music is drenched in the blood, sweat and tears that go along with social alcohol consumption. Bands whose music seems to actually give off an aroma of smoke, bourbon and broken dreams and hearts. Bands who have little chance in the mainstream music world because they wouldn’t look cool running down a street in slow motion (the only talent required by young male bands today it seems), but who can prop up a bar in a way "Third Eye Blind" could only dream of.

Native are very much of the later group. Hailing from New York City, they are a six piece who play soulful rock, with a strong blues influence. This three song CD single includes two studio tracks, Outlaw and Sweet Intensity, and a longer live track called Rover. The first two are from their new album "Exhale on Spring Street", which I strongly hope someone is going to send me to review.

Reviewing CD singles is normally a little unsatisfying, but this three track, twenty-minute sample flows smoothly, giving a sense of the different styles the band can move between. The two main things that separate Native from the millions of other bands out there doing the same thing is singer Mat Hutt wonderful gravely, "white man" blues voice. The other is the story telling quality of the songs. This is best displayed in Rover, a "drinking man neglects his family" song that is so good it could pass as a cover of an old Irish drinking lament.

The main track "Outlaw" would be perfect background music for any movie that has scene where the hero goes to a New York bar to drink away his blues. Blues riffs compete with honky tonk piano and the wistful lead vocal as it wails "Oh well, oh well I know I’m going to burn". Great stuff.

Native will probably never sell a million records or have their posters adorn the walls of teenage girls, but from what I have heard on this single they certainly have a long future ahead of them as a band. Now about sending me that album to review…

Band Website | Contact Native | Give us Feedback on Review