Bloodshot Records release: Not So Loud : An Acoustic Evening - Bottle Rockets - Review

I just reviewed the new to be released Bottle Rockets recording. It's a stretch to call it blues but more roots music but it is well done and enjoyable.

RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 16, 2011
The Bottle Rockets have been making some of the most incisive, literate and lighter-raising American music for going on eighteen years now. And some of the loudest, with a reputation built on a rough and tumble snarl honed by a thousand nights on stages around the world. But that only speaks to part of the story of the Bottle Rockets. So many bands, when you unplug the amps, you find that the emperor has no clothes, that the songs collapse in the quiet; it was the thrill of the tables rattling and ears ringing that sold the goods; the cold of the beer, the heat of the moment.

Not So Loud, recorded in an acoustic setting at a 19th century schoolhouse in their home base of St. Louis, reveals a body of work steeped in the history of, and fitting easily into, the finest traditions of American folk music. It is a dimension of the Bottle Rockets easily overlooked when you’re getting caught up in their riffs that tap so easily into our musical DNA, but it is an entirely fresh inroad to the strengths in their songwriting and musicianship.

Pulling from all eras of their acclaimed catalog, including classics from seminal albums long out of print, Not So Loud re-casts Bottle Rockets’ songs with lyrical and rhythmic nuances that will surprise both longtime fans and those who might have dismissed them as "just another bar band."