Nothing if not a model of consistency, Buffalo Tom has been making the same decent-to-great music since 1992’s Let Me Come Over. Actually the Massachusetts trio’s third album, Let Me Come Over feels more like a debut, as it zeroed in brilliantly on the group’s strengths, namely the earnest, imagery-laden, acoustic-gone-electric songwriting of guitarist Bill Janovitz and bassist Chris Colbourn and the propulsive punk undercurrents supplied by drummer Tom Maginnis. Judging by the band’s latest, Skins (Scrawny), it’s a formula that still has legs. Skins is the group’s eighth album and second since reuniting after a 10-year (sort-of) break, and its world-weary lilt and been-there/done-that themes make it the perfect grown-up companion piece to Let Me Come Over’s reluctant coming-of-age angst. It may be the best thing the band has done since that LP. Buffalo Tom will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with Janovitz and Colbourn.
Maginnis: I really love how this book, written by Zachary Lazar, experiments with reimagining history from such an impossibly intimate perspective, while skillfully tying together three different strands of actual historical events. Sway weaves together stories of the Rolling Stones with a Manson family member and experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger in a way that is almost voyeuristic. You feel like you could be sitting in the car with the Stones on their way to play Hyde Park in London after Brian Jones has died. While it’s maybe not the noblest type of fiction, I can honestly say that I’ve never really experienced anything like that before while reading a book.
Video after the jump.
