Minnesota winters have a way of making folks restless. The debut of Minneapolis band Steeplejack is an often engaging document of that restlessness; the best tracks have a ragged energy and some splendid playing, though the songwriting becomes a bit shaky on the second half of the record.
Kitchen Radio is more rock than country by nature, grounded firmly in Minneapolis rock ‘n’ roll but with rootsy touches of fiddle and banjo in spots. “Five Feet Nine And Rising” is particularly Minnesotan, a song about an epic snowfall with the electric feeling of a high school classroom watching a growing storm and anticipating early dismissal.
Although they take a variety of approaches, Steeplejack is at their best on uptempo songs. Several of these tell Fargo-esque stories of darkness in the Midwestern winter: “Caroline” is a tale of a five-hour ride home from an appointment best forgotten, with a driving banjo and rhythm section. “Panning for Gold”, with its tornado-pace fingerpicking and a fearsome fiddle is the best track on the disc.
But slower songs such as “Don’t Break No Hearts” feature middling melodies and lyrics that verge on overwrought collegiate poetry. The title track is a suicide ballad that needs some of labelmate Richard Buckner’s lyrical restraint (though there is a goofy grace to the first couplet, which rhymes “southern Minnesota” with “Bismarck, North Dakota”).
Steeplejack’s high-energy numbers can keep you warm for those long winter nights, and the band shows enough promise that the feeling might last through the spring.