Sometimes a band’s music calls out to be played at specific times. Portishead is good for sex, Kraftwerk for doing the robot, Pink Floyd—staring at a wall. Bottle Up & Go's debut EP, These Bones, is perfect for drinking about 1,000 beers and slipping into a manic fit. This blues-rock trio nails making whiskey friendly tunes for either drinking alone, or in the company of your most self-destructive of friends. However, listening and drinking lends itself to the conundrum of the chicken and the egg.
While I'm no different, (this band's write-ups often comment on the drinkability of the music), this isn't just kids drinking dad’s leftover Zima in their basement and dicking around with an out of tune guitar. Building on a core of blues, Bottle Up & Go simultaneously cling to the basics while venturing into the experimental.
Men on a mission, the duo vomit their music with remarkable deftness, plowing through stripped down, jacked up bluesy anthems with the aura of a wounded pride fighting for redemption. This is a band that has taken on the blues not only with a guitar and a bottle of the good stuff, but also with a never-say-die punk attitude that won’t give up, but just might drink until it doesn’t remember anymore.
The songs vacillate from soothing lows, where singer Keenan Mitchell’s gritty vocals detail their sorrows, to a surprisingly coherent cacophony of guitars and drums and sax that provide moments for reflection on and reprieve from the miseries of life. Dance therapy has never been so raw.
