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Bobby and his Young Criminals’ Starvation League’s latest is a frothy, brilliant, genre-bending mongrel. There are dreamy pop songs sung by folks not ready to turn their backs on the visceral joys of gutter punk. There’s a shameless embrace of groovy SoCal country rock. There are sharp, soulful Stax-style horn blasts thrown to the dark, moist corners of the studio where the irrepressibly cool indie rock kids hang out with their Morphine records. There are sparse, harrowing, timeless recordings recast from the fields and hollers and dropped, half a century later, into the back of a rock band's shitty van and the shitty dressing rooms of a million shitty clubs. It is brimming with south of the hips R&B swagger layered over primeval murder ballad improbably and impressively thrown next to orchestral/discordant droning prog-roots. There is a love of the Brill Building, as well as Music Row, CBGB's and the gas station outside Memphis where the van broke down.

It is a beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, ambitious, hypnotic, lovesick and lovelorn lyrical knockout of a record. Joining him in the Starvation League this time around are guests like Andrew Bird, Paul Burch, Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard), Will Oldham (Palace Bros.), Paul Niehaus (Calexico, Lambchop), and Deanna Varagona (Lambchop). It also contains the best songs EVER about being in a touring band and about Nashville.

Taken as a whole, From the End of Your Leash plays like an album of love songs to music itself; we never know where it will lead us, and Bobby and the crew cannot be bothered to question where the muse will drag them next. The trip won't ever be dull, we can promise you that.

"It's as melancholy as anything Gram Parsons or The Stones ever attempted in the early '70's, as orchestrally-ambitious as Bowie's most experimental work, and as groovin' as any CCR hit." Ballard Lesseman, Charleston City Paper

"These are songs that punch you in the mouth and dare you to fight back." The Boston Phoenix

"A near-genius mix of classic country, indie rock and new wave pop." Nashville Rage

"He's forged a musical style that blends smoking country rock and dreamy '80s Britpop in way that must leave Ryan Adams stricken with envy. Those who latch on to From the End... will likely find themselves returning to it for years." Performing Songwriter

"This album finds him cutting a more ambitious piece from the proverbial apple pie, with jaw-dropping results... the sylistic paella he mixes up is even more mind-blowing. While this may not be the prettiest album you'll hear this year, it is surely one of the most brilliant." Tim Sheridan, Paste

"It is a thoughtful, funny, mournful, bittersweet CD full of haunting lyrics played with an almost psychedelic sentimentality...and the entire album sounds like a fusion of Wilco, Gram Parsons and some shrugging acceptance of the inevitable." F. Griwkowsky, Exclaim

"The album paints him as a troubadour with a brawler's mentality, a rough-and-tumble punk rocker and a Gen-Y soul shouter who's not afraid to record a brooding, acoustic tune." Robert Baird, Magnet

"Traditional country, prototype rock 'n' roll or Americana... plus R&B, punk and even some pop elements converge into a sound that is overpowering, often extremely loud, yet also quite compelling and alluring. In short, Bare's compositions and the groups performances embody both the grand and the anarchic aspects of American vernacular music." Ron Wynn, Nashville City Paper