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Yukon Blonde - Yukon Blonde

Andrew Vice | Plano, TX | 03/28/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In a way, I guess you could say that each year has its big genre; you know, the one that gets all the blog buzz and hipster attention. In 2009, with the release of bright, beautiful pop albums like "The Pains of Being Pure at Heart," it was clearly the year of glo-fi, with a steady stream of hazy gems coming out through the year. Towards the end of '09, we saw the beginning of the 2010 trend take shape in Girls' excellent debut, which heralded in a sort of "return to rock" guitar album renaissance. The start of the year saw releases from bands like Surfer Blood and the Soft Pack herald in the rock album trend, and now, with Yukon Blonde's very good debut, we have the inevitable country-rock oriented album destined to fill out the gaps between Surfer Blood's surf rock and the Soft Pack's punk. Yukon Blonde, hailing from my native land of Canada, are rocking it old school, and doing it in a surprisingly American way. You'll hear echoes of classic bands like Boston in their taught riffage and sparkling arrangements, and their singer's distinctive twang lends this album its strongest link to country rock. Personally, I'm not remotely a fan of modern country music, but I truly dig this album, and while I don't expect it to get much buzz from anyone, which is a shame, I think it will stack up as a very solid release at year's end, if not one of the best of the "return to rock" albums."