Able to really feel outdated? Buffalo Tom is simply two years shy of 40. Invoice Janovitz, Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis had been barely out the door on the College of Massachusetts after they recorded their murky, half-formed 1989 debut with Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis, however issues would get a lot better from there. The one-two punch of 1992’s Let Me Come Over and 1993’s Large Purple Letter Day formally kicked off a good ’90s run as one of many extra well-regarded bands of the college-rock space. The trio shut it down in 1998, solely to return 9 years later sounding rejuvenated on 2007’s Three Simple Items.
Out Might 31 on the band’s personal Scrawny Information, Leap Rope is Buffalo Tom’s third album because the reboot—and it’s a vibrant, intermittently playful and somber testomony to maturity and resilience. Janovitz and Colbourn proceed to problem themselves as songwriters, and the band has by no means sounded extra, effectively, groovy. Thirty-eight years on, the ’90s are a distant reminiscence, and Buffalo Tom isn’t only a nice alt-rock band—they’re an amazing rock band.
For Leap Rope, they returned to Woolly Mammoth Sound in Waltham, Mass., to work with Dave Minehan (Neighborhoods, Replacements), who additionally engineered 2018’s Fairly And Peace. “Autumn Letter” was the primary tune the group tackled contemporary out pandemic quarantine.
“It jogs my memory of a sure form of traditional Buffalo Tom tune from our Let Me Come Over period,” says Janovitz. “It’s large, open chords are strummed approach up excessive on the capo’d guitar neck, with somewhat Van Morrison Celtic melodic tinge.”
We’re proud to premiere Buffalo Tom’s “Autumn Letter.”
—Hobart Rowland