“Sounds Like…” is as grand an upgrade that any ruckus-throwing batch of troublemakers like Florry could make. The sludgy accoutrements of “Waiting Around to Provide”—which hocks a phrase from Townes Van Zandt—wink into a big country stomp, with Jackson Browne’s melodicism splattered atop the humid parables of Drive-By Truckers. Harmonica puffs tattoo the air, while an organ hums like a guitar chord. “Say Your Prayers Rock” would have nestled in with the sensual and staggering looseness of the Rolling Stones‘ Exile on Main St.’s third side. Van Zandt swings back into view on “Dip Myself In Like An Ice Cream Cone,” as Francie Medosch turns into a gas station poet serenaded by a wah-wah talk box rippling like a bassline. But don’t mistake “Sounds Like…” for some phony imitation game.
This music—part hangout chatter, part guitar solo rummage sale—is a persistent, euphoric choogle. The door-kicking riffs and road-worn fables come free of charge. “Hey Baby” finds Florry’s full-band sound growing ten-fold, with Medosch’s influences of the Jackass theme song and country-fried Minutemen serving as a raw-hemmed, honking template for her and her crew. “First it was a movie, then it was a book” is a sentence-case dream of rollicking gravitas. Medosch and Murray’s guitars collide into each other, stretching two-ton riffs around organ, pedal steel, and homespun, jammy crescendos.
“Sounds Like…” ends in “You Don’t Know,” a skyscraper song flirting with the 8-minute mark. It’s a doozy, waltzing into view like a scorned lover with a tail caught between their legs. Medosch stresses every syllable, coiling her accent around every vowel.
Even in a year in which “indie-country” was everywhere, Florry album stood out. On “Sounds Like…“, they come off like a lo-fi garage rock version of Crazy Horse, the Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan & The Band, a true “road album” following the campfire singalong vibes of 2023’s “The Holey Bible“. But it’s not all ramshackle jams. The sentimentality of songs like “Hey Baby” and “Pretty Eyes Lorraine” tug at the heartstrings like the best country tearjerkers.
The Fat Angel Sings 