Self-released – Release Date: 4/24/19

Too punk for folk and far too folky for punk; Canyon Sounds’ self-titled debut album thrusts itself between genres, offering the impression that the band members have been at it for some time. Individually, they have. Singer/guitarist James Reineking and drummer Jason Plane have also been playing together for more than a decade and recorded the album themselves.

This Boulder-based quartet is both sonically and thematically diverse on its new record. Multiple lead and slide guitar tracks weave a sonic tapestry throughout the album. Furthermore, Reineking doesn’t say anything he doesn’t need to. He lets the mood talk. The album’s opener, “Cuts,” sets a precedent for their debut album. The melody starts modest and simple; swinging back and forth between G and C chords: “Well I’m spitting up the same old shit / I’m making points you know I’ve made before / I’m regurgitated guts on refinished hardwood floors.” The next track, “The Painter,” is a song about hindsight and the unknown. The man in the picture is searching for something, staring down a road. Reineking speculates the man in the painting is at ease being all alone and thinks perhaps he already has all he’ll ever have. One certainty is reached at the end of the song: he should’ve been a painter.

There’s a sense of distraught and reckoning on “Put It to Bed,” a song about moving forward and moving on. The protagonist is tired and at the end of his rope, yet he retains patience. The track is a standout; it marks the end of a relationship and a new beginning. The album’s closer, “Waning Moon,” takes a reflective stance and carries the forward-marching theme woven into this album. “I was told that I could do anything / and anything’s what I intend to find / You say I’m a waning moon, but what does that makes you?” Recommended for fans of Sundowner, Chuck Ragan, Paul Westerberg.

– Jason Duarte