WagonsAfter a five-year rest, indie veterans Wagons are back with a studio album that marks their 20th year together as a band. Standout track and single Keep On Coming Back is an uplifting tune with a slick chord progression and lyrically explores the push and pull of leaving home and returning. Sirens’ haunting western themes shows the baritone of frontman Henry Wagons fits somewhere between the monotone of Paul Banks and the mellow tone of Matt Berninger, Old Fashioned Nights goes down like the cocktail it was surely named after, complete with lap steel, back-up singers and an epic guitar solo that would make country Slash proud.
While the album retains enough alt-country to keep fans satisfied, it also operates outside the genre, as on the opening track but also on other songs such as Wake Up, which harks back to the moody rock of the early 2000s. Paying homage to these past influences keeps things interesting. This collection of ballads from the somewhat underrated Melbourne band will keep old fans happy but surely pick up some newbies on the way.
