Favourite Sons are, we’re led to believe, somewhat of a supergroup, comprised of members from underrated 90s psychedelic art-rock bands Rollerskate Skinny (in the case of frontman Ken Griffin) and Aspera (in the case of the rest). We mention this as it might be important to you; it’s just a fringe detail for us as, to the best of our knowledge, neither act ever garnered enough height to trouble Crud’s fussy lugholes. The story instead starts right here for us, but what a place to start. We might be wildly ignorant of the actual details of Favourite Sons’ times past, but you’d have to be as stunted as a crudely chiselled marble bust not to sense a history, the depth of that history, and the evolution that has been necessary to reach the fruits of this present time.
It tumbles from every pore of ‘Down Beside Your Beauty’, that sense of history, leaving the impression of years spent amassing a weight of musical maturity and emotional complexity. “Squalor, in the squalor, don’t let me die in this bi-polar squalor!”, curses Griffin urgently, like Ian McCulloch with a fever, during ‘Rise Up’ which should give you a lay of the land. There is timeless grandeur to the quality of their playing, think Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and The Velvet Underground, but like those two the real focus is the shade and detail of the dirt clinging to their bellies from living life so close to the ground.
There are many surface shades to their dark psychedelic coat. ‘When You’re Away From Me’ opens the album with the pleasingly deep, shimmering quirks of Pavement, ‘No One Ever Dies Young’ reminds of a melodically twitching Guided By Voices with the grit of Screaming Trees between their teeth, and impression that only grows more dense as we wade into the sun-baked title track. ‘Tear The Room Apart’ has that lukewarm alt-country sunset Chris Issak thing going on, only an iota or six darker, ‘Pistols & Girls’ tackles the Velvet Underground head on and ‘The Things That We Do To Each Other’ builds to a glorious humming piano-led climax like Wilco and Neil Young soaking up and drawing warmth from the last rays of the day. Whichever way you look at it they’re a super group.