The 77s have long been the underground heroes of bluesy, gritty, jangly rock. They're that band that everyone has heard of but few have actually heard.
Judging by their latest album, the curiously-titled A Golden Field of Radioactive Crows, ignoring this band should be considered a felony. Crows takes the trio of Michael Roe, Mark Harmon, and Bruce Spenser into perhaps the most pop-accessible territory of their remarkable career. Their unique brand of melodic rock music has always had that "classic rock" vibe, but it now has a stronger "fun to listen to," pop quality.
Listening to Crows, one is struck by two things: the unconventional, refusal to cater to listener expectations in the songwriting, and the awe-inspiring musicianship that these three guys display. The phenomenal guitar work alone is worth the price of the disc. As the first release on the new Galaxy 21 Music label, which purports to be an artist-friendly label, leaving each artist alone to do the work that they want to do, A Golden Field of Radioactive Crows is ample evidence of what a talented artist can come up with when there's no heavy-handed record label tinkering. This is rock-and-roll artistry at its rough-around-the-edges finest. - Robin Parrish
