If the idea of Smithsonian-style Folk, Neil Young orneriness and Sonic Youth-esque guitar overload chumming it up as bedfellows might seem unlikely then remember there are precedents. Hell, don't forget that Neil Young was once dubbed The Godfather of Grunge and that he invited Sonic Youth to support Crazy Horse at Madison Square Garden during his incendiary 'Weld' phase circa 1990/91.
If you're wondering how this babbling relates to electric-folk New Yorkers TALL FIRS, well that's probably because they offer a tasty, if rather offbeat melange of the above on their second album, the wryly-monikered 'Too Old To Die Young'. And, while it might be something of an acquired taste, it's a taste that may well persuade you seconds are in order once you've begun to happily consume.
The core Firs of the 2006 debut, Dave Mies and Aaron Mullan have since been joined by a third full time Fir in drummer Ryan Sawyer and he stamps his loose-limbed authority all over 'Too Old...' Memorable opener 'So Messed Up' hugely benefits from his flailing rolls around the kit and positively revels in both the bucolic and the lure of feedback and excess. Besides, any tune opening with the lyric "we were acid-crazed teenage dreamers...those booze-fuelled days of pills & freakouts" and marrying it with the gnarly vitriol of music which could have been siphoned from Neil Young's 'Time Fades Away' is worth its' salt in my book.
Much of what follows confirms the good impression too. Songs like 'Blue In The Dark' and the insistent 'Hairdo' are full of alcohol-fuelled longing and deceptive, chiming guitars, while - allegedly - the latter is the first lyric Aaron Mullan has written where nobody dies, so that's a first of sorts. Arguably even better is 'Good Intentions' where gentle, rolling syncopation gradually gives way to the sort of end coda Sabbath circa 'Paranoid' would have been proud of. The desperation in the deceptively simple lyric ("you can't change anything and I can't stay the same") is another good example of how Tall Firs can haul your attention in without seemingly trying too hard.
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Detuned, Sonic Youth-style guitars shadow the album's every move, but it's only when we're half way through and come upon 'Warriors' (the first of the album's two epic tracks) that the threatened free-form guitar implosion kicks in and the Firs succumb to a 'Silver Rocket'-style collapse. It's thrown into sharp relief by the economic (almost) pop of the ensuing 'Lookout' and 'Loveless', where they demonstrate they enjoy embracing the linear as much as the experimental.
Another important box Tall Firs tick, too, is the importance of a strong finale and Sawyer, Mies and Mullan keep two of their best in reserve specifically for this purpose. The album's second all-out epic 'Hippies' has an intriguingly ambiguous title and quietly asserts itself as Tall Firs at their quintessentially dreamy, crescendo-bound best, while the closing 'Secrets & Lies' features a duet between Meis and Holly Miranda (Jealous Girlfriends) that's not so much Mark Lanegan with Isobel Campbell as Mark Lanegan with Hope Sandoval and a very large bottle of bourbon. It's languid, starcrossed, betrayal-fuelled and basically just sits there brooding for four minutes. It's also possibly the very best thing here, despite some stiff competition.
Tall Firs, then, are a bloody weird, but often bloody good amalgam of the industrial and the pastoral and are clearly keen for their shoots to be part of the much-needed reforestation of the modern day indie plateau. Whether they will turn out to be an evergreen species remains to be seen, but on the basis of the best bits of 'Too Old To Die Young' their trunks will bear further growth rings before they require chopping.
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