Cut Worms - Hollow Ground

Max Clarke has a knack for conjuring up warmth in his music, like endless summer or ageless youth. The 27-yearold’s debut album, ‘Hollow Ground’, crackles with the heat of a love-struck nostalgia, woven together with a palpable Everly Brothers influence and retro sound. It reaches back into decades of plainspoken, unfussy and squarely American storytelling and pulls it forth into 2018.

Some of ‘Hollow Ground’ bloomed from that same period of driven creativity that yielded EP ‘Alien Sunset’; both ‘Like Going Down Sideways’ and ‘Don’t Want To Say Good- Bye’ find new life on the album.

The rest is new. There’s ‘Till Tomorrow Goes Away’, a sheepish love song, thrumming with twangy guitar and a two-step rhythm. ‘Cash For Gold’ channels buoyancy; a doo-wop effect on the sleepy backing vocals build out the dreaminess of Clarke’s own affecting croon.

‘Hollow Ground’ strikes the balance between cerebral and simplicity in his storytelling. His lyrics explore the raw realm of youth, its weightlessness and possibilities but channeled through a lens of restraint. Someone who’s old enough to know better but still gets drawn back into the romanticism of teenage feelings - and knows how to take the listener along, too.

TRACK LISTING

1. How It Can Be
2. Coward’s Confidence
3. Don’t Want To Say Good-Bye
4. It Won’t Be Too Long
5. Till Tomorrow Goes Away
6. Like Going Down Sideways
7. Think I Might Be In Love
8. Cash For Gold
9. Hanging Your Picture Up To Dry
10. Mad About You

PRODUCT DETAILS

Artist:  Cut Worms
Label:  Jagjaguwar
Condition:  New 
Genre:  Rock & Psych
Format:  Vinyl LP
Cat Number:  JAG310LP-C1
Released:  4 May 2018