The best band that you aren't listening to: The Fox Hunt

The Fox Hunt is the best band that you are currently not listening to. They hail from Martinsburg, West Virginia, and as their Appalachian roots may suggest, they play a mean version of modern bluegrass. The band has two primary songwriters, John R. Miller and Matt Kline, who both cover a range of human emotions in their music. Women, sinning, drinking, misery, temptation, you know, the happy subjects, are covered in depth in their lyrics. Their music is mostly uptempo country/folk, filled with vocal harmonies, and lots of banjo and fiddle, rounded out with acoustic guitar, mandolin, and upright bass. And the musicians frequently rotate instruments and share lead vocals. Now that's talent!

I first become familiar with them from their stellar 2007 debut, Nowhere Bound. If you don't already own this album, go buy it now. NOW! In 2009 they released America's Working So We Don't Have To, an album of traditional Americana folk songs with their own unique arrangements, followed by a self-titled EP of four original tracks.

This year they released another album of originals entitled Long Way to Go which is quickly becoming my favorite album of 2010. It spans an entire range of roots music, with a mid-tempo opening track called "Screw Me Up" which is about a woman messing with a dude's head. Later, a snappy song called "It Suits Me" which is ostensibly about a one night stand (the instrumental outro kills me, listen below). One of the best songs on the album, "Four Horses" is a slaying meditation on life and death. "No one said that life was easy. No one said that life was fair." Gulp. My favorite song on the album is about breaking the bank to please your lush of a woman (see the "I'll Drink Cheap" video below).

It Suits Me.mp3
Four Horses.mp3
Buy: Long Way to Go (2010)

I once read an interview with Dallas Good of The Sadies where he said (paraphrasing), "I've said it a million times. Bluegrass is faster than speed metal." Watch the below video and you decide.