The new record from Dutch Interior. Stereogum has called the band’s music “fantastically immersive” and Paste cosigns their “recipe for a rock song that’ll stick with you long after it’s over.” Friends since childhood, the Los Angeles-based sixpiece’s new record is an an inventive blend of modern day Americana, shapeshifting indie and ultimately an inspired passion project from six lifelong friends who have made a record that sounds bigger than themselves. In the same way artists like Wilco or MJ Lenderman have turned classic song writing on its head, the album both acknowledges and breaks with tradition, and is an ultimately hopeful elegy of what it means to confront change and find beauty in a precarious world.
Five of the six members of twangy, low-key LA band Dutch Interior write and sing and their distinctive creative and actual voices keep things interesting on their pretty, contemplative third album, “Moneyball”, that also feels cohesive via a love of ’90s indie rock, alt-country and slowcore (along with those genres’ original ’60s/’70s influences). The most current day analog is probably MJ Lenderman, and while Dutch Interior don’t deliver his level of quotable couplets (few do, let’s face it), songs are memorable, nicely impressionistic and full of dreamy atmosphere.
The most apt comparison, though, is probably Acetone, the cult ’90s group whose influence, the band say, “is all over our discography.” You really feel that influence on songs like “Canada,” “Wood Knot” and “Beekeeping” which float slow like a lazy river, but also in the harmonies and layered guitars on “Fourth Street” and “Sandcastle Molds” which both kick up some dust.
Noah Kurtz might write the most immediate songs here, but contributions from Conner Reeves, Jack Nugent, Davis Stuart and Shane Barton balance things out and allow everyone to bring their A-game.
The Fat Angel Sings 