The Midwest Beat’s At The Gates

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Wisconsinites are good at all things jangly, and with their newest album, At The Gates (due out June 22nd on Dusty Medical Records), The Midwest Beat continues the dairyland tradition of ramshackle and retro pop music.  Fans of the Madison/Milwaukee quartet will immediately recognize At The Gates as The Midwest Beat’s most developed, and polished album to date.

From the first track onward, “Get it Started,” the album seems to shimmy and gleam with a old-soul style of R&B pop.  None of the songs are longer than three-and-a-half minutes, and there’s vocal harmonizing on every single chorus, for better or for worse.  The guitar work is bright, and sometimes surfy, the drums are always straightforward, the bass is drowned out just like in the old days, and the lyrics could have been taken from British Invasion phrasebook.  At The Gates treads on musical ground that has been needlessly trod on since the 60′s, but there are points on the album when it’s obvious to hear that somewhere underneath all that past-praising there is a serious band trying to make well-crafted songs.

The best track on At The Gates is “Bring The Water,” which is a dramatic blitz through saloon country on the keys of a chiming piano.  The band is at their best when they are at their loosest, oddest, least predictable, like on “Pretty Lady (Darkly)” which drags a surf song slowly over a bed of reverberated nails.  “Better Off Dead,” is another track which reminds you that this is the same band that opened for Gringo Starr last month at Mad Planet, and completely outperformed them.

At The Gates is not an arrival party for The Midwest Beat, a band with unlimited appeal and pop sense, but it’ s an enjoyable listen, just so long as you don’t count how many times they can work the phrase “good times” into their lyrics.

Mp3: The Midwest Beat – Get it Started