Golden Boots - "Burning Brain"

Golden Boots - Cellophane (Park the Van 2007)

Golden Boots - Burning Brain / Park the Van

Lala la luh la, la. First impressions can be pretty important when it comes to an album. At times, it's a red herring and a barnburner of an opening track gives way to a sadly (or rightfully) overlooked remainder (e.g. Wiretap Scars or That Much Further West); other times, it's just the beginning of something great (e.g. Hell Hath No Fury or Sound of Silver). Those are just some recent examples straight off the top of my TGI Friday's-infested head, but you get the picture. A first track can say a lot. More flair?

So when Golden Boots drunkenly stumble into one's proverbial Headphones Saloon with their lackadaisical "Ancient Buried City," you're not initially holding out much hope for cohesion or even the end of the song. Will it all just fall apart, much as Lucero does live? Or will they actually fight their way to the end of the first song of their, um, first album (for Park the Van)? Initially it doesn't look too promising.

But like a lot of quality alt-country, you never really know what you're going to get right out of the gate. Also, country n' western destruction can be a beautiful thing... And at the heart of Burning Brain, that's what this is about. It's an album about destruction. Maybe not Appetite for Destruction destruction, or collapse of the Aladdin destruction, but destruction all the same. Dirty, dusty, desertesque destruction. Yeah, desertesque. Sounds legit enough to be in the dictionary, right? Vote that in for me.

And give Golden Boots a whirl, because the Tucson, AZ duo are bringing something to the table, a local sensibility, that seems to be lacking in, say, Bark Bark Bark. Ryen Eggleston and Dimitri Manos, both their God-given names, are clever lads. They seem to know that with limited resources, you can still fuck around with people's expectations. So they do, and willingly: If it's not eight-track rickety porch folk on the appropriately titled "Rubble," it's the slow-moving beauty of "Buildings," a lo-fi psychedelic pop fragment. And holy hell, is that a bedtime nap they accordion'd their way into "Cellophane"?! We're talking true magic here. Though the recording quality is better than their 2005 debut Bland Canyon Adventure, the tape hiss can still be either real or imagined on these songs.

The la's come back for "West Nile Isle," a desolate tune for all the fictitious cow-herders in Gary Larson's vivid imagination. When the campfire goes out and all the horses have passed out from exhaustion, that's when Golden Boots come in, shimmering in the chilled air of a desert moonlight. Likewise "Diamond Eye (Classic Rock Mirage Version)," where reverberating guitars spend their time bouncing off the walls of their hole-in-the-wall studio to great effect. It makes the song sound bigger than it is. "Head Without the Man (Man Without the Head)" is the final song here, and one of the best. It's a straightforward "crumbly western" cut that lives up to the description the duo gives itself. The best part is a cello (or viola?) that comes in between chorus and verse. Sort of like a Murder By Death with less people and pageantry.

In effect, Burning Brain is the sound of a little alt-country group that can. The production isn't sterling, the vocals are scattershot, information on the group is sorely lacking (though that's more my problem/complaint than yours)... But Golden Boots is a lot like Wilderness Pangs in that they are doing so much with so little. They are a small town fireworks display of ideas, blowing across a clear desert sky. There is so much emotion packed into this little album, from jubilation to longing to dazed indifference to utter despair, that bulky big releases would do well to pay attention. Dr. Dog and The Teeth may be grabbing all of Park the Van's headlines, but as ever at Audiversity, we like pulling for the little guys out there. That said: Welcome to the slightly disoriented, sundazed and blissfully honest world of Golden Boots. Boys, a marketing suggestion: The Octopus Project may have taken "Roo!," but "La!" is up for grabs. Just throwing that out there.