Shortstack

In the early 2000s, Allentown’s Adrian Carroll came under the spell of guitar pickin’ legend Merle Travis. Carroll’s band, Shortstack, benefited greatly from this enchantment and their debut self-titled shows the results: a wonderfully messy homage to the days when nothing inspired a song like a good old fashioned hanging. Somewhere between the undertaker and the overpass, Shortstack’s urban garage take on the Wild West is filled with screaming lap steel, hollow-bodied tremolo, thumping string bass and mumbled vocals. If Cuff the Duke were to slowly morph into the Sadies, Shortstack would surely be the halfway point. Whether it is the dark raucous country of "Plenty Time for Sleepin’,” dealing with eschatological truths and cemetery real estate, or light-hearted instrumental interludes that conjure visions of matching nudie-suited band members (like on the traditional "Farewell My Bluebelle”), Shortstack have found a comfortable middle ground between classic country sound and contemporary hot-wired Americana.