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About Centro-matic’s Fort Recovery by Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers:
Centro-matic's music comes on like a sound from a distant dream, something new, yet unmistakably familiar. Clear images adding up to something a little vague, but in such a comforting way. Once as a child, I watched part one of some two-part children's adventure (NBC's Wonderful World of Disney circa 1972, no doubt) and that night dreamt the next week's conclusion verbatim. No one ever believed me and I still don't blame them, not sure I believe it myself, but I know it happened. That's what Centro-matic is like to me. Their music is somehow like something I heard in my head as a child, yet I know I didn't. I find myself singing along with their songs the first time I hear them. They're the best live band in America and know how to make great records. Bunches of them (they're prolific as hell) yet some how they keep getting better. All of this while playing an exhausting 150 shows a year.
At any rate, Fort Recovery is my favorite Centro-matic album. My favorite album by my favorite band. That's a beautiful thing that I hope to never outgrow. One of life's pleasures that I look forward to passing on to my kids. When I was in fifth grade my favorite band was Pink Floyd and my favorite album was Dark Side of the Moon, at fifteen it was Bruce Springsteen and Darkness on the Edge of Town. At one point The Replacements Tim held that position. Big Star's Radio City hovers around there somewhere and lord knows I love plenty of Neil Young and Bob Dylan records. If I could go back in time, The Stooges Fun House and Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti would all make some mystical list.
Centro-matic is my favorite band that is still vital and intact. All four of them together for ten years now. Their brand new album is their best yet. My un-mastered CD copy is my favorite album of 2006 and honestly my favorite new album of the past five years. I have listened to it several times a day for three weeks straight and like those great masterpieces of old I still find new things to love at every listen.
Centro-matic's Fort Recovery is a masterpiece, and I don't use that word often.
Select Press Quotes
“What makes (Will Johnson) such a phenomenal lyricist is that he opts for the simplest language when painting an abstract picture.” -- Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie in the New York Times
"It's unforgettable in a Neil Young or Jeff Tweedy kind of way… As multifarious as the indie rock canon it's practically everything: from the South, in the basement, smoking pot, on the porch, plugging in, plucking soft and clocking out. It's a hootenanny of sweetly weathered proportions, free-wheeling clap-alongs and perfectly boozy balladry - not to mention ass kicking pop songs about rotary wheels and shotgun shells. Love You Just the Same is what a trucker cap would sound like if it could sing. Oh, and play violin." -- Magnet
"HOT LIST! Oct 2003 - Country twang with a pinch of emo, held together by Will Johnson's raspy, searching voice. It's hearty, stick-to-your-ribs fare that makes you proud to be an American." -- Rolling Stone
"These resonant fables of half-loved underdogs, essentially preposterous scenarios reported with apocalyptic seriousness, call to mind the last two Flaming Lips discs... the band hugely rawks here in an unprecedented approximation of their live show, often summoning the moldy hearts of Mould and Hart. Hell, a harnessed Cobain twang even surfaces..." -- Pitchfork
"I like Love You… just the same as Icky Mettle or Harmacy or Mag Earwhig!... Which is what's kind of great about it: Johnson's just this guy banging out heartfelt rock songs with his friends down in Texas for a devoted audience who eat them up.” -- Seattle Weekly
"Johnson's yearning voice is even reminiscent of Doug Martsch, but more soulful, tender and ragged. Centro-matic do more than nod at their classic rock affection -- notably Neil Young -- but with a natural, instinctive knack of melody that so many of today's bands lack, particularly those currently sprinkling Americana seeds over their indie rock roots – imagine Grandaddy throwing away their Casio keyboards and replacing their technology fetish with good-ol' fashioned desert heartache and a shot or two of whiskey-drenched bar room rock... the key here is Johnson's songs, 13 tracks and each one memorable and heartfelt as the one before." -- Other Music
"Like a flannel shirt that's lost its shape and clings to you with a welcoming familiarity, there's something gloriously lived-in about Will Johnson's songs… Will Johnson is a genuine freak-pop genius." (8/10) -- NME
"Not only do Johnson and company (bassist Mark Hedman, drummer Matt Pence, and piano and fiddle player Scott Danbom) crank new deliveries out quicker than a traditional Irish-Catholic mother, there's never any filler -- every song's a winner. Johnson never repeats himself, treading the same territory without retracing a single step. Each song stands on its own. When you consider Johnson's impressive back catalog, you don't ask yourself, 'Can he keep it up?' -- you only think of how special each album would be (and how much you'd miss the steady stream of near-brilliant melodies) if Centro-matic released only one a year. As long as Johnson has enough songs in him, whatever form they happen to take, there's no reason for him to slow down. If it were up to me, Centro-matic would release a new album every month. If only." -- Dallas Observer
" Will Johnson is the personification of the once-vaunted American work ethic, something that makes it even easier to back Centro-matic. If this country still likes a winner as much as it enjoys rallying behind an underdog, then I know this understated, lovable bloodhound will hunt." -- Copper Press
"All The Falsest Hearts Can Try is an endearing amalgam of folk, garage/rock and psych-tinged power pop that suggests a shotgun marriage of Paul Westerberg, Bob Pollard and Wayne Coyne." -- Magnet
"Easily the most satisfying full-out rock album I've heard this year, this gritty, southern fuzz-guitar opus drips with lo-fi Rust Never Sleeps feedback layered like molasses over vista-wide stretches of open dirt road. Each track has a rawness that is bracing with textural beauty. Translated: It's as brutal as riding in the payload of a '72 Ford pick-up across a mesquite field on the way to your grandma's funeral. The best thing to come out of Texas since the cattle prod." -- Omaha Weekly/Lazyeye
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