Friday, March 17, 2006

FROGHOLLER"Haywire"Zo BirdTHE HICKORIES"Lost in Pennsylvania"Hickories

A LOT OF bands are experimenting with Neil Young's country-folk-rock fusion, trying to capture that elusive mix of unguarded lyricism and fuzzy-amped aggression. None of them have done it better than Frog Holler, a sextet laboring in near obscurity in northeastern Pennsylvania, and never has Frog Holler done it better than on its new album, "Haywire."

Key to the sound is the way lead guitarist John Kilgore and lap steel guitarist Todd Bartolo (who also leads the Youngers, a like-minded band) can narrow their focus to clean, melodic lines or open the iris to crunchy chords or to any nuance in between. The rhythm section can pull back or push forward as needed; Mike Lavdanski adds just enough banjo or accordion and no more. Like a combination of Crazy Horse and the Stray Gators, the band conjures an emotion-charged atmosphere, and Darren Schlappich, the singer-songwriter out front, gives that free-floating feeling a voice.

When he struggles through the clouds of guitar distortion on the opening track, "Hades," and asks, "How come there's heaven for us, but not till we die?" you can hear both the hellishness of the current situation and the yearning for something beyond it. On the album's best song, " '74," he begins by singing a lilting folk song about his father killing a snake and his uncle shooing away a bear. "I was seven years old and I couldn't relax," Schlappich sings, "a sign of things to come." And with a rock 'n' roll riff, the song leaps forward to adulthood and the fulfillment of that prophecy.

"I have a thing for an era I've never known," Michelle Volpe sings on "1965," a song from "Lost in Pennsylvania," the new five-song EP from the singer-songwriter's quintet, the Hickories. No one in the Arlington-based band was alive in 1965, but the group does evoke the jangly guitars of the Byrds (the group was named after the Byrds' song "Hickory Wind") and the California dreaminess of the Mamas & the Papas. The sweet vocal harmonies of Volpe and band mate Meghan Sharp would be a lot more effective if the chorus melodies were more memorable.

-- Geoffrey Himes

Appearing Saturday at Iota.