Blitzen Trapper

Based on the amount of love piled upon last year’s Wild Mountain Nation, it wasn’t a huge surprise when Blitzen Trapper were finally snapped up by Sub Pop. And it isn’t a surprise that their much-anticipated Furr is as good an album as the band have threatened to make for a few years now. The thing that Furr has going in its favour is that it backs off slightly from the unpredictability of its predecessor yet doesn’t lose the spontaneity. To call it a "focussed” or "polished” record would do them an injustice but this time it actually flows well and works as an album. With a mix of Dylan-esque folk songs (including the superb title track), fuzzy guitar freak-outs and ’70s rock, Furr is still wonderfully shaggy around the edges and does nothing to tarnish the band’s almost perfect reputation.