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Great Music for the down times, June 11, 2003
The Ashtray Hearts play great music, and the people in the band rock! They have a unique sound which gives them a kinda somber tone. If you aren't in the best mood, this is the music to listen to. It carries you forward. It sounds great on my Houseboat over the mississippi!
Heartbreak & Harmony, May 9, 2003
This sextet from the north country scenes of Minneapolis brings together a debut that tells of faded friendships, unrequited love, and the distance adulthood brings. The music, infused with the twangs and lilts of Americana, features layers of accordion, trumpet, electric piano, and banjo, creating a rich network of sound cut occasionally by a guitar solo that could have been filtered through an old radio and reverb-drenched riffs that peek through the spaces between verse and chorus. Clear-voiced and articulate vocal harmonies resonate and add further depth to the well-phrased and touching lyrical laments ("I gave away everything I promised you") as well as the shoebox-full-of-snapshots details ("We drove out in separate cars / Across Main Street past the country bar"). As the songs linger and pass from scene to scene, the mood they set is mostly quiet and pensive, but it is punctuated by collective crescendos and moments of raw, electric release. Overall, this first album breathes as a whole and strings together twelve songs perfect for driving throught the deserted streets of your hometown, wondering whatever happened to your first love and what you'll do now that your last is gone.
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