Album reviews for The Stranger

Twangville Music Blog (2019)

Like a 5-year-old watching the parade as the circus comes to town, I just sat there mesmerized as the latest from Triggers And Slips, The Stranger, passed by. Equal parts classic rock and country, front man and leader Morgan Snow has captured a musical style that transports you back in time if you lived through the 70’s. And makes you wish you did if you’re younger than that. The opening song and title track are a pretty even blend of honky-tonk country shuffle and roots rock, with a spacey, prog rock intro. At the other end of the CD, the band covers Alice In Chain’s Rooster in all its ponderous glory. This version is no less depressing, but whereas the original was more of a narrative, Snow manages to capture the anguish of a dying man’s friend with his soulful voice and a bit of twang from acoustic guitar and banjo. I’m Not Your Baby adds some Baptist church organ to a Tennessee Whisky style number where Morgan spits out “ain’t no goddamned reason for you to leave” in disgust. Other songs lay straighter in line with their inspiration. Blue Smoke is my favorite, with its tale of going to see the girlfriend in an old beater. Its simplicity is belied by the driving drums, keyboards, and guitar interplay, building to a climax that left me craving a cigarette. Drummer Eric Stoye punctuates the end with a Ringo-worthy “I’VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!” Old Friends lays a Waylon Jennings walking beat up side your head before it turns up the twang on vocals and a sweet fiddle part. When it comes to solidly melding two, at the time, distinct styles into something new and better, The Stranger is in the league of No Depression or Sweetheart Of the Rodeo. It’s obviously not as ground-breaking, but I was gobsmacked when I first heard it, and I haven’t been able to get the CD out of my player since.

The ties that bind

Triggers & Slips’ Morgan Snow: Passion, purpose the key to overcoming addiction

For Morgan Snow, labels are a nebulous concept. His band, for instance — Triggers & Slips, which releases a new album, “The Stranger,” this week — doesn’t fit into any certain box. There are throwbacks to the band’s 2012 full-length debut that are most definitely honky-tonk in origin, songs built with lap steel and twang and Snow’s country drawl that belies his roots as a Utah native. But there are a great many flourishes drawn from other colors on his musical palates, often within the breadth of the same song. The Ties That Bind UsTake the title track, for instance: barrelhouse piano and loping bass lines slowly transition into a fuzzy, driving freight-train boogie, and by the time the band reaches the end of the line, it’s almost a completely different song. It’s a creative gear-shift that continues throughout the course of the record — the final track, in fact, is a cover of the dark-and-dreary Alice in Chains track, “Rooster.” To classify Triggers & Slips as a band firmly entrenched in a single genre is misleading, too say the least. The same goes, Snow believes, for addiction and alcoholism. Even the terms are fluid, Snow points out — and as a mental health counselor, he speaks from a position of both professional authority as well as personal experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

City Weekly Live Music Picks: Nov. 21-27 2019

Sometimes, you kind of wish that certain bands with inexplicable names would offer a little insight into how they came up with their handle. Ordinarily, we'd put Triggers & Slips into that category, but these local stalwarts—who continually demonstrate their dexterity through an astute blend of rowdy rock, outlaw country, honky tonk, Americana and close-knit high harmonies—are good enough that they don't really need to explain anything. If you've caught them in concert before, you know that they aren't afraid to bend a few boundaries; last May at The State Room found them offering homage to Alice in Chains, and indeed their music also offers no small hint of reverence for bands of '90s outfits like Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, Sound Garden, Blind Melon and the like. Their upcoming appearance at the State Room serves as a release celebration for their newest offering, The Stranger, as well as a reminder that hometown talent is worth paying attention to. In fact, the new album is already considered a potential break-out that will bring them to a national audience, even while it reaffirms the fact that they give us locals plenty to be proud of. A riveting blend of gritty, assertive, down-home defiance and dusty, well-weathered balladry, it's a fine representation of the best this band has to offer. Flush with class and conviction, it's the sort of thing that makes Triggers & Slips a genuinely potent combination. (Lee Zimmerman)