Quailbones - s/t Demo Tape

Brand new cassette full-length from this band out of Murray, Kentucky. If I remember correctly, I first heard about Quailbones some years ago when Whatever Brains played with them in their hometown... it seems like Quailbones have been holding down the small but vital Murray scene for quite a while now, hosting touring bands and, by all accounts, blowing their minds. I can only assume that's what happened with Ralph from Not Normal, and I'm glad to see that he's putting some work into helping this band become more widely known. If you're wondering what Quailbones sound like, Whatever Brains is probably a closer sonic reference point than anything I can think of in the Not Normal catalog. Quailbones play heavy, song-oriented music that seems to have roots in both the post-punk and indie rock traditions, though it's not nearly as stylized as most of what gets called "post-punk" nowadays and not nearly as vapid, banal, or blatantly commercial as most of what I hear coming from the indie end of the spectrum. If you're looking for an older reference point, I would be very surprised if there weren't at least a few Swell Maps records scattered across the band members' collections. They have a similar way of pulling earworm hooks out of songs that feel, as a whole, kind of unstructured and jam-y. Speaking of those hooks, they're bigger and more sophisticated here than they've been on any previous Quailbones release, approaching near-Parquet Courts levels of melody-composing prowess. Could this be the release on which Quailbones finally break out and get the attention they deserve? I sure hope so, because I hate to see a band this great remain so criminally underrated.