DOWNLOAD: Country Mice - "Morning Son" (from Festival)

STREAM/DOWNLOAD: Country Mice - "Festival"
(Download link from PopMatters.com)


Breaking away from the close-knit ties of friends and family in rural Kansas, Country Mice front-man Jason Rueger moved east, not to Nashville, where you might expect a country boy to venture, but to Brooklyn. It doesn’t take long to hook up with fellow Midwest transplants Ben Bullington (guitar) and Kurt Kuehn (drums) as they all quickly band together, finding comfort in their shared sense of displacement. Eventually, as the trio becomes more assimilated to their new surroundings, they recruit upstate New Yorker Mike Feldman (bass).

As Country Mice, they rally together to craft apocalyptic ballads through amplifier hazes that thicken into funnel clouds, drums that stomp-clap sedately before the storm peaks, and bass tones that thicken the bloodstream. Rueger draws on his small town rearing with sophistication beyond the ordinarily romantic and reductive Americana troubadour, and his songwriting is anything but dime a dozen.

Strong traces of Neil Young and Wilco are mixed into modern experimental guitar sounds that any fan of mid-90’s Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. will love. Living and gigging in Brooklyn, Country Mice begin to fully develop their sound, which becomes by influenced the other hardworking bands of Brooklyn's fast-paced scene. With the release of two 7” singles and a limited edition cassette on Brooklyn-based indie labels, Country Mice embarked on several national US tours, played CMJ and recorded and recently released a Daytrotter Session.

On March 28th, the band unleashed a new single “Festival” and their debut album Twister is due out on June 7th. This is a record that sonically chisels through the calloused shell of glossy rock & roll to find the dissonant live wire beneath and play it for all its worth. It tells a tale of strained memory: the hardships, joys, and love of growing up in a small town in the Midwest, with the hopes and dreams of traveling the world – a record for every kid seeing the big world from his small bedroom window.

Tracklisting
1. Ghost
2. Festival
3. Morning Son
4. Rabbit On A Leash
5. Close Behind
6. Clover
7. Worn Hearts
8. Bullet of a Gun
9. Shasta

Links:
Country Mice