The desert continues to fascinate. Dual-guitar four-piece Tribesmen make their home in Coachella, California (never heard of it), and their instrumental approach definitely takes some cues from the airy tones of Yawning Man that one imagines are just floating by on hot, dry desert winds, but that’s not quite the end of their base of influence on their latest single, “Alpine.” A strong undercurrent of post-rock à la Russian Circles or, to keep with vocal-less acts, Explosions in the Sky, emerges as the new song plays out its five-minute course, the video featuring the band performing one at a time and then all together in the Coachella Valley Art Center with various projections on and around them. The guitars of Wilber Pacheco and Alec Paul Corral are a big distinguishing factor, coming together periodically for a wash of ringing echo when not exploring their own whims over the foundation made firm by bassist Leslie Romero and drummer Freddy Jiminez, and that gives a somewhat psychedelic feel, but in both their presence in the video and in the meter of the song itself, they show little tendency toward shoegazing.

While that’s the case for “Alpine,” it’s not universally true, as the dreamy sprawl of “Under the Ice” from Tribesmen‘s 2013 EP, Blue, demonstrates. There, Romero‘s bass plays an even more considerable role in providing the anchor around which the guitars wisp, but with “Alpine,” it’s more about the four members all working together on a singular linear build, Jiminez signaling a next stage in the takeoff at around 2:30 in with a steady kick-line where previously he’d been mostly adding to the ambience on cymbals and toms. A break to quiet atmospherics is answered with more fervent pulsating just before the four-minute mark, and what stems from there is where the post-rock element is really most evident, because instead of going for an all-out heavy payoff, they run a few rounds through a kind of indie boogie that comes as a genuine surprise with what precedes. Given the fluidity they’re able to craft, I’m inclined to think of stepping back from that kind of precipice as a conscious choice rather than a songwriting fluke on the part of a young band, but either way, it’s ultimately this restraint that winds up as the most lasting impression of the track.

Tribesmen have a couple singles and the EP available as pay-what-you-want downloads via their Bandcamp, and it seems fodder for an investigation. Post-desert rock? As I said, that part of the world continues to fascinate.

Tribesmen, “Alpine” official video

Tribesmen on Thee Facebooks

Tribesmen on Bandcamp

A little while back, I wrote up the killer Lady Snowblood single from young-gun California desert rockers Fever Dog. The jammers returned on July 4 with a new two-song single called The Great Tree, and like last time out, they’ve made it available as a free download through their Bandcamp page, taking rootsy Hendrix fuzz and giving it a modern desert swagger that, given that these dudes are really just getting going, is fluid beyond what you might usually expect.

The songs — “The Great Tree” and an accompanying extended take on “Nobody” from their 2012 debut full-length, Volume One — blend space rock grooving, classic tones and the band’s come-by-honestly desert rock lineage to excellent effect. As a title-track, “The Great Tree” positively smokes, led by the guitar of Danny Graham but with the rhythm section of bassist Nathan Wood and drummer Joshua Adams losing no step in following his riffs and hair-covered leads. “Nobody (Acid Version)” picks up from six-string meandering to Radio Moscow-style blues, but bent through a prism of psychedelic color, Graham‘s vocals filling out echoing spaces while the drums span channels and Wood holds the piece together in steady, flowing fashion. Most importantly, both build and solidify the ideas Fever Dog presented on Lady Snowblood, which considering that was released about four months ago is indeed an encouraging sign.

Fever Dog have pressed up a scant 50 copies of The Great Tree that they’ll have with them to give away at shows. No word what format they’ll be  on — I’d suspect CD or tape, but you never know — but with the free download, you get to pick your own poison as regards format, so I’d suggest you go ahead and get to it.

Have fun:

Fever Dog, “The Great Tree” (2013)

Fever Dog on Bandcamp

Fever Dog on Thee Facebooks

Honing classic tonality and a sense of fluid experimentalism, desert rock upstarts Fever Dog make a strong statement of intent on their new single Lady Snowblood, proffering organic burl and power-trio chemistry offset by synth drama and stonerly boogie. The are only two tracks on the thing, but both “Lady Snowblood/Child of the Netherworlds” and “Hats off to Andrew Bowen (Live Version)” go a long way in hinting that Fever Dog have more going on than fuzz riffs and Kyuss-derivative idolatry.

“Hats off to Andrew Bowen” particularly owes much more to Hendrix than anything commonly belonging to the desert genre, but even “Lady Snowblood/Child of the Netherworlds” show the young outfit as capable of enacting a strikingly natural, jammy groove that brings the listener along to the extent that, when it breaks into the bizarro Floydian synth, one is hardly jarred at all by the change. Indeed, the second of the two extended cuts has its freakout on both ends, going from the instrumental push to theremin-inclusive guitar vibing that results in headphone-worthy psychedelic atmospherics. The three piece of guitarist/vocalist Danny Graham (also theremin), bassist Nathan Wood (also noise) and drummer Josh Adams (also synth) made their full-length debut with the aptly-titled CD Volume One on Interstellar Overlord Records, which was no less ably riffed or stylistically intriguing, a cut like “Since I Met You” blending Melvins-style vocal snarl with the bell-bottomed garage fuckall that inspired that band in the first place — a break of fuzzy noise thrown in just to throw off, it would seem — but the single shows them working in longer form than the vast majority of the full-length, and they’re suited to it, both in the moodier blues stretches and the unexpected turns that answer them.

Both the single and the full-length have the vocals pretty forward in the mix — obviously it’s less of an issue on “Hats off to Andrew Bowen,” which is instrumental — resulting on “Lady Snowblood” in a kind of younger Alice Cooper sneer, but when it comes to the guitar, bass and drums and the extras Fever Dog have working in favor of their material, there’s little about the Lady Snowblood single I can find to take issue with, and it would seem that as much as the notion of “desert rock” conjures a specific notion in the mind of the listener, there are still some around intent on expanding that definition even as they continue to refine it. Very cool sound, lots of places they could go sonically. One to watch for sure.

Fever Dog, Lady Snowblood Single (2013)

Fever Dog on Thee Facebooks

Fever Dog on Bandcamp

Fever Dog at Ozium Records