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.
Colbourn: I love the early Alfred Hitchcock films and could live forever in the world of The 39 Steps, roaming the Scottish highlands handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll. Watching Woody Allen’s Match Point, I get the same rush of repulsion, love and desperation. Claude Chabrol, Pedro Almodovar’s great Volver and Ruth Rendell novels all take you there, too.
Video after the jump.
