My Album Of The Week for the week of January 6th-12th, 2014:
The Cloak Ox - Shoot The Dog
It sounds strange, but I'm a little disappointed that I'm making this my first AOTW of the new year. Shoot The Dog came out in 2013 and, had I taken the time to pick it up then, I'm almost sure it would have been one of my favorites of the year.
For those who don't know, The Cloak Ox is a group consisting of longtime Twin Cities musicians Andrew Broder, Martin Dosh, Mark Erickson, & Jeremy Ylvisaker. Shoot The Dog is their first full-length LP, but it could hardly be considered a "debut." If you're a fan of any of the musicians above, you probably have some sort of idea what you're getting into.
What makes this album intriguing to me is the fact that, while Andrew Broder & Martin Dosh have built their careers around music that could be deemed "difficult" or "inaccessible," The Cloak Ox finds these guys indulging in hooks & accessibility (by their standards, at least. I mean, the album does open with the 9:00 "Yesterday's Me" and ends with 6:17 of a title track). Regardless, the album sounds like Ted Leo trying to write a Radiohead record (which I mean as a huge compliment).
If you follow my music writing/podcasts at all, you're probably already familiar with The Cloak Ox. MinneSarah & I reviewed their song "King Rope" in Songs Of The Week #57. I also opened Flatbasset Radio: Episode #23 with their track "Josephine."
While I don't agree with their dog shooting policy (or, theoretically, their ox cloaking policy), I'm genuinely excited to spend the week with this one. Considering the weather outside, Shoot The Dog seems like the type of album I could spend a week getting lost in while hunkering down at Planet New Basset.
