Hearts Of Oak - New England

"Country shoegaze" is the genre apparently, therefore Hearts Of Oak should score highly with me as they combine two of my favourite things in the musical world so lets see... Well there is certainly a very alt.country feel to much of this, its laid back and rootsy but also often with a vein of menace looming behind proceedings.

"Well lit highway" is a great psychedelic rock track, the vocals very Bob Dylan (albeit before Bob lost his voice) with some tasty wall of noise. Hearts Of Oak have a fairly retro late 60s and early 70s sound in many ways but updated sonically and technically for the now, and it sounds very fine indeed. "Lovers ain't easy" could be a late 60s Dylan song that went missing. "Grey riders" is a very appealing reflective track that stretches off into an effect laden soundscape.

I'm not sure about the "country shoegazer" label but there are elements of both especially on tracks like "Grey riders", but lets not get too hung up about labels. Its really good music, all the description you need really.