Indie alt country

15 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Alt-Country, ROCK: American Underground

Details:
post-punk with a twang.

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PRESS:

When we last heard Long Beachâs Paperplanes on 2006âs self-released Volcanoes, they had just taken their first baby steps into the alt-country wilderness, adding elegiac strains of steel guitar to their jittery, Velvets-infused sound. With Rhinestone Republic, however, the âPlanes have eschewed the âaltâ prefix, driving deep into real country territory. Here, twangy Bakersfield guitars, honky tonk rhythms and heartfelt lyrics of loss, escape and addiction coalesce into something undeniably authenticâand almost unbelievable given that the record is an entirely DIY affair, written, recorded and mixed by the band.

Trading off songs by guitarist Micah Panzich and bassist Pete Tavera, Rhinestone Republic uncovers remarkable songcraft and musicality. Panzich trades licks on his Telecaster with the virtuosic Cliff Kane on pedal steel, whose presence throughout the album is an outright blessing. Rob Harvick drums with an understated touch, rolling the beat across the saloon floor on the upbeat âYou Know Sin,â but dialing it back on weary-eyed numbers like âIn This Townâ and âFull Bloom.â

Once the fiddle swells up alongside Panzich on the intimate closer âDonât Make a Sound,â youâll feel like turning the lights out. Although a companion albumâthe rock-oriented TransAmerican Lightsâwill be out later this year, you canât escape feeling that with Rhinestone Republic the Paperplanes have achieved something definitive.

groundcontrolmag.com

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FULL BLOOM
by Chris Ziegler
The District Weekly


It got dark and Iâd been waiting so I could most diligently listen to the new Paperplanes album, and so I took off Terry Allenâs Lubbock (On Everything), which contains some of the finest writing of any kind ever to come with an American credit, and I put on Paperplanesâ new album and let it roll, just as Guy Clark reminds us, and it fit like Terry himself had just been saving a seat. Paperplanes took the other road to Lubbock c. 1979âsinger/guitarist Micah Panzich calls it âpost-punk with twang,â which makes only half sense to all redneck mothers and El Paso assholesâand though we end up chatting happily about Pere Ubu and Velvet Underground in the cozy high-rise rehearsal space Paperplanes call the Eagleâs Nest, their new Rhinestone Republic shares only a certain purity of guitar tone and weariness of spirit with those â70s rust-rock debasers. Rhinestone is big sky not big cityâcowtown country rock (with pedal steel filigree by Cliff Kane) from the year 2003 minus 25.

Until last week, PaperplanesâPanzich, Kane, bassist/singer Pete Tavera, and drummer Rob Harvickâhadnât showed a hair in sunlight for almost eight months, instead ensconcedâa word inappropriate only until they took me up to a rehearsal studio checkered with thrift-store oils and a signed photo of Bigfoot, though not signed by Bigfootâuntil they quit recording after 25 songs that theyâll be releasing as two different albums, even though Panzich says theyâve still got more they didnât have stamina reserved enough to tape. (Since Paperplanes started in Tucson, Arizona, as Panzichâs four-track band, he figures 300-some songs have come and gone.) Transamerican Lights is coming soon and will be the ârock record,â which is more what we remember as PaperplanesâLou Reed/Robert Pollard/maybe some Replacements trioâand here is Rhinestone Republic now with one humble honest hour thatâs easily the best Iâve heard so far this short year.

Panzich sings in the high register (David Lowery when heâs sad and not sarcastic) and Tavera sings in the low middle and they sing lead on the songs they happened to write, and although the fast songs are good and sometimes so great (âHonky Tonk,â like an outlaw George Jones cover, and Panzich says Jones and Jennings are all over Rhinestone) the slow songs make the lights dim, and here Iâll find you two of the finest: Panzichâs âNumber Nine,â written during the minutes Tavera was in the hospital possibly having a heart attack, and Panzich was by the home phone waiting for the call back, and as pedal steel flutters down to the telephone wire he sings, âBecause you choose your own path, youâre at the end of your line / now Iâm standing on the edge, waiting for a friend to die . . . â And then Taveraâs âFull Bloom,â which could replace âStoneyâ on Jerry Jeff Walkerâs 1976 A Good Night For Singinâ to the benefit of all involved, and which Pete sings so fearless and true that Iâd have to go lay down to wonder about my own life before I could finish typing three lines of his lyrics, and when the fiddle comes in on follower âWeekendâ (very Camper van) itâs like someone shaking you awake. I did a whole interview with them but whatâs good for print after that? So we grabbed beers and I looked out the big windows at Long Beach in the night and wondered how they did it. Have you heard Terry Allen, I asked? No, they said. Well, I should have said, heâd probably like to meet you.

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