Their sound is lonesome, haunting, and almost classic country at times, yet sounds right at home in the world of independent rock music. Western Fifth creates a visionary sound, founded on heartfelt and often dark lyrics, blended with both classic and eclectic instrumentation.
The band recorded their shambling, country-tinged debut EP in a single weekend during the winter of 2006. Lasting nearly a day and a half, the mostly improvised sessions were tracked at Silver Ant Studio in Minneapolis.
Western Fifth started playing shows at various venues around the Twin Cities in the summer of 2006, and has since expanded to a six-piece ensemble. In addition to the traditional guitar, bass and drums, they incorporate a myriad of instruments into their music, including piano, lap steel guitar, Wurlitzer, trumpet, mandolin, organ, and banjo.
“…much of their stuff was like listening to The Replacements if they had hired Steve Earle to do their arrangements for them, and then tossed a trumpet in from time to time to round things out. The lyrics were rich in imagery and the music was spare at turns, despite having six group members onstage, but as they got rolling it sort of felt like you'd been hit in the head with a bar of soap shoved into a sock—it was a lot to digest, emotionally. The songs had a worn, frayed-at-the-edges feel as if they had emerged, fully formed, from the drawer of some long-forgotten piece of furniture in the basement of an even longer-forgotten, broken-down farmhouse.†- Pat O’Brien, howwastheshow.com
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