Natural Forces – It Takes All Kinds

They look like they just stepped out of a video of Cat Mother back in the early seventies, hair straight and long and clothes worn and casual, but they didn’t. Photoshop them into any picture of early Heartsfield or Cat Mother, though, and you would not blink. They have to be musicians or have something to do with music. You can’t look like that and not be. And you have to have a spool table in your living room. I think it’s the law.

Not that these guys sound anything like Cat Mother. They are only two, after all, and it would be hard playing all those instruments with so few. They sound to me like they are rockers from the fifties transplanted by aliens— musicians toying with rockabilly, trying to get it to evolve into what would become rock. On a few tracks. They sound like garage— bare butt and alive and at times with an attitude. On a few tracks. They sound like they just bought some new electronic toys, like that newfangled thing called a fuzztone. On a couple. They sound like they wanted a more guttural sound out of the guitar, so they broke a cone in one of their speakers. On a couple.

Am I badmouthing these guys? Hell, no! These guys have something most bands will never have— a roots-based sound both primitive and yet developed. I mean, it is just guitar and drums (though Josh Washam does play keys as well as guitar). I thought it was hard to pull off a two-man band until I saw the likes of Hymn For Her and Shovels & Rope and Crushed Out, which all make it seem natural. You just have to have that something— a sound or the beat or at least musical direction— and Natural Forces has it.   

I was thinking maybe this album was a fluke, so I begged for a file of the first— Animal. No more than three tracks in, I tossed the fluke theory aside. I heard something I actually had a hard time believing. I heard bits and pieces of Paul Curreri. Paul Curreri, to me, is from another planet. He takes his songs on rides which make Mr. Toad seem like Tinkerbell— not wild and frantic rides but adventurous rides with twists and turns most listeners would not expect. I get that same feeling listening to Natural Forces. That there is something new just pass the next verse.

The songs are short and sweet, sometimes raucous and sometimes not so much. Washam and drummer Andrew Kahl work well together, keeping it loose while pushing the groove. Check the vids out and if you have even a scintilla of interest, check out their fundraising page (click here) for T-shirts, vinyl and other goodies. I did.  Then again, I like these guys. A lot.