Normally, when I sit down to listen to some rock with a little bit of classic influence it’s common that the material in question is heavily inspired by classic doom bands and rock legends as you can really hear those influences in the final sound, so we get a lot of stoner and doom rock bands with a familiar sound that’s simply recycled endlessly. A take on such but with more of a southern American twang isn’t something that I find myself listening to all that often, but it’s Shotgun Sawyer with their upcoming album that’s making me reconsider that immensely.

It’s the vast, vast majority of the time in my region of the States that whenever there’s something with a hint of anything that I could say has a “Southern twang” to it, it’s country music. And usually, I don’t mix well with that (just not for me most of the time), but there are always hints that catch my eye and keep me listening. Listening to Shotgun Sawyer felt as though someone had purposefully taken every single tasty morsel that I’ve ever heard in those situations, mixed them with an ever-classy Delta blues attitude, and threw them into nine tracks that was an immensely easy listen yet an immensely satisfying one as “Bury the Hatchet” has plenty to sift through. A solid riff and half-decent sound isn’t enough to carry a record like this, and Shotgun Sawyer has clear knowledge of that as they effortlessly create an album that becomes a real lay-man, simple person collection that you’ll hear many bands try to aspire to be as they play in bars and clubs all across the south, but it’s only with works like “Bury the Hatchet” that we actually see it come together and deliver material that’s not to be scoffed at.

To bring together something like what we get here with “Bury the Hatchet” is a formula that we’ve seen on countless occasions with throngs upon throngs of different acts trying their hands at it to varying levels of success, and it’s every now and then that we get something that makes the formula feel infallible as the band in question shows delicious mastery over the style. Shotgun Sawyer shows glimpses of such excellence time and again with this record, and I’ll be damn sure to continuously investigate with each record they set forth. Should you be even mildly interested in such a sound, I can’t help but highly suggest you do the same.

“Bury the Hatchet” releases on April 19th via Ripple Music!

LISTEN to advanced tracks from “Bury the Hatchet” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Shotgun Sawyer on Facebook here.