A product of the fertile and incestuous Nashville scene, which puts even Athens’ impressive intermingling to shame, the bluesy, bruising Natural Child features former members of Turbo Fruits and Kintaro and sounds straight out of 1972. This ain’t your typical tongue-in-cheek, punk-damaged garage rock revisionism; like fellow Nashvillians JEFF the Brotherhood, Natural Child is solidly and convincingly proto. Tunes like “Rock Bottom,” from the group’s 2012 LP Hard in Heaven, are boot-stomping bombers, chunky and distorted and painfully analog. Self-consciously inane lyrics like “Smoke it up/ Snort it up/ Shoot it down” (on “Blind Owl Speaks”) are indicative of the band’s M.O., where sex, drugs and rock and roll are all means to the same hedonistic end. Weird how that seems almost quaint these days.
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