★★★★★
VII gives you no indication that it was created after 1975. Blitzen Trapper's seventh full-length continues in the band's tradition of offering listeners a timeless blend of folk, rock, roots, gospel, country, and everything in between. Songwriter Eric Earley picked up his first string instrument when he was 6, and about 30 years later he's still paying tribute to the songs his father taught him, from John Denver to Creedence Clearwater Revival...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2013-12-11
★★★★★
Throughout Blitzen Trapper's career, songwriter Eric Earley has applied his absurdist literary gaze to everything from Americana, country and '60s folk rock to power pop and glam rock. On the group's most successful records (particularly 2007's Wild Mountain Nation), the audacious juxtaposition of various styles effectively eschews the idea of an intrinsic artistic identity...
- www.beat.com.au
2013-11-19
★★★★★
Moving through VII , you discover yourself immersed deep in the woods, far into the mountains, and transported to another world. Centered on bluegrass and folk but hardly tied to it, Blitzen Trapper find a way to step forward and backward at the same time, and the music is as much modern as it is classic. Frontman Eric Earley is a storyteller's storyteller, evoking deep, rich images that take hold immediately...
- www.relix.com
2013-11-13
★★★★★
?????????? VII could very well be subtitled, "How Blitzen Trapper got Their Groove Back." The band took a certain amount of flack from media and longtime fans for their last release, American Goldwing, because of everything from selling out to being drenched in sentimentality. The reasons--whether justified or not--seemed to be endless. VII feels more natural and free-wheeling than that release did, and by extension the result is an album that feels more organic...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2013-10-09
★★★★★
For a band who once, employed an unexpected and refreshing background synth line to the otherwise traditionally told Black River Killer, Blitzen Trapper's recent efforts have just seemed so expected. After 2007's excellent Wild Mountain Nation, 2008's Furr, 2010's Destroyer Of The Void and 2011's especially disappointing American Goldwing saw the band trying to experiment, but falling into a sound, with no real desire to escape from it or provide any sort of variance...
- www.musicomh.com
2013-10-06
★★★★★
Tweet The Shape of Country to Come Everything old is new again. Or, at least a few old country music tropes are, thanks to Blitzen Trapper. The Portland outfit's new album, VII, is a tightly-paced, gripping take on modern-day country music. There's plenty to love and precious little to hate here, so let's get to it. You're going to feel a few waves of nostalgia hit you while listening to VII. Relax, it's perfectly normal...
- www.mxdwn.com
2013-10-05
★★★★★
On Blitzen Trapper's seventh album, frontman Eric Earley tells bizarre tales set in old, weird America, a nightmarish backcountry populated by ghosts, gamblers, devils, drunkards and a crooked-toothed vixen with a neck tatt. The band sounds more polished than ever, especially when they shed their folk roots, but the funky riffs ("Feel the Chill," "Drive On Up") owe more to Songs in the Key of Life than Highway 61 Revisited.
- filtermagazine.com
2013-10-05
★★★★★
Blitzen Trapper is having a pretty good year. The self-proclaimed can of Rocky Mountain Whoop Ass celebrated its 10th anniversary with a deluxe reissue of the band's 2003 debut, Blitzen Trapper, back in April and a month later, band multi-instrumentalist Marty Marquis released an all-synthesizer version of Ty Segall's Goodbye Bread, a slant nod to Blitzen Trapper's "American" melting pot of genres as well as a homage to Wendy Carlos' 1968 experiment Switched-On Bach...
- pitchfork.com
2013-10-03
★★★★★
BLITZEN TRAPPER - VII
Album:
VII
Artist: Blitzen Trapper
Label: Vagrant
Release Date: September 24, 2013
www.vagrant.com
BY LEE ZIMMERMAN
Blitzen Trapper has always defied description, a quirk they seem to enjoy and embrace...
- blurtonline.com
2013-10-04
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