ANNA KRAMER AND THE LOST CAUSE, Rustic Contemporary Sounds (Self-Released, 2007)
Listen: “Da Da Rock”

“I’m never gonna tell you how I feel, and you’re never gonna tell me,” Anna Kramer says at the outset if Rustic Contemporary Sounds. She’s know’s she’s kicking him to curb. So does he. But Anna’s the one with the electric guitar, and right after that exchange it’s time for her real answer. Maestro, please? Guitar, organs, bass, and farm animals, and who-knows-what-the-fuck-else this girl keeps in her big old barn join in a ruckus that’s more revival than breakup song, more parade than pity party.

“Got My Feet on the Ground” is next, and in that one she tells us: she don’t need no one. Big surprise. It’s more bang-crash, upbeat roots music, with plenty of southern guitar tricks, and banjo, and organ, and a few things snuck through the back door.

Kramer’s cornstalk voice holds all of this together. She even peels a tear or two with the mid-album favorite “See My Love.” (”See my love walkin’ down the street/He’s the kind of love that you oughta meet.”) There’s “Da Da Rock,” which is what Daft Punk would sound like playing at her house, and there’s the hand crocked on a proud thigh, hair all up in a bun, cowboy boots underneath the cutoffs. And that’s when Kramer’s delivery starts to sound like Lucinda Williams if she had the diction of Ludacris. All of that, and then you throw in the loopy psychedelic guitar moments? Fantastic. Throw in a few more, and Detour’ll bring the body bags ourselves to the show. Anna Kramer is murderous; she is off the charts. She is our dark angel of the six bleeding strings. Lick it. — Johny Loftus

[tag]Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause, Rustic Temporary[/tags]