Groanbox

Canada's acoustic world roots-influenced band Groanbox have made a point of recording in unusual settings, and their sixth studio album conforms to type, having been recorded in a cabin in the Ontario wilderness. You get a strong sense of how they might have come up with the material by the means in which they jam their way into a riff on ‘Deep Tree Diving’. Their staple Americana influences and flavours remain as rustic as ever, with fewer obvious world music references than their impressively titled Guts, Lungs and Bones album of 2011, although ‘The Root Will Split the Rock’ offers a convincingly catchy fusion of gospel and desert blues. But the Latin lurch of ‘The Face That You Deserve’ sits a little uneasily next to the irritating staccato and whispered vocals of ‘Barefoot in the Ninth’, although thankfully Cory Seznec's penchant for occasional eccentricity seems to have been largely kept in check.

Oscar Cainer remains a brilliantly atmospheric and imaginative percussionist, and the rollicking ‘Katrina’ is a fitting conclusion that affectionately celebrates their long-held love for the jazzy sway of New Orleans.