It's tempting, but not entirely true, to say that when
Royal Trux split,
Jennifer Herrema got most of the band's sludgy rock and
Neil Hagerty got most of its experimental tendencies. After all,
Herrema's underground hair metal with
RTX is hardly conventional, and the
Neil Michael Hagerty and
Howling Hex albums have plenty of fiery guitars. However, on
Earth Junk the
Howling Hex (this time a trio including vocalist
Eleanor Whitmore and keyboardist
Sweney Tidball) takes a sharp turn away from the slightly skewed blues-rock of
XI and toward
Hagerty's outer fringes, emphasizing just how disjointed and disorienting that side of his music can be.
Earth Junk was recorded in Austin, and the album is informed by the city's roots rock legacy as well as its acid-tinged experiments: most of these songs are based in time-tested blues and country progressions and concentrate on simple instrumentation (voice, guitars and keyboards), but they're far from straightforward -- in fact, the almost total lack of percussion throughout emphasizes just how rambling this album is, particularly on the sprawling "Sundays Are Ruined Again" and "Contraband & Betrayal." This mellow-yet-freewheeling vibe is challenging without being abrasive, and though
Earth Junk doesn't sound exactly like any of the
Howling Hex's previous work, it's distinctly
Hagerty, its organic warmth nodding to
You Can't Beat Tomorrow and its left-field jams recalling
Nightclub Version of the Eternal. The tracks where
Whitmore sings are among the standouts, with her unabashedly sweet vocals making the songs more grounded, or more hallucinatory, as needed.
The Fiery Furnaces-esque "Faithful Sister" showcases her ability to bring
Hagerty's lyrical flights of fancy back down to earth, and she provides a foil to his sharp sneer on duets like "No Good Reason" and "The Arrows."
Earth Junk closes with some of its wildest tracks, as if to underscore the album's dedication to experimentation: "Blood & Dust" is equally fascinating and confusing, its fragmented vignette suggesting someone reading a torn-up short story while guitars and keyboards freak out in the background; meanwhile, "Coffin Up Cash"'s tumbling collage of delicate acoustic guitars, guttural electronics, and keyboards could be a (much cleaner) descendant of
Trux's
Twin Infinitives.
Hagerty remains so mercurial that it's impossible to predict where he'll be in his creative orbit when he steps into a studio, but this trip to his weird terrain should please -- or at least intrigue -- his longtime fans.