Monday, May 10, 2010

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks – or three-quarters of Real Estate swapping instruments and drafting in a different drummer – didn’t depart too far from Real Estate’s template of channelling classic 70s AM radio rock through the indie underground on their eponymous album. Same good shit, different name.



Their brand new three-track 7”, These Days, though, really distinguishes them as something more than a Real Estate side-project. The back-porch Americana of Getting By is a road song that revisits Dylan’s Highway 61 picking up Neil Young’s Emperor of Wyoming along the way.

There’s also some Byrds, Teenage Fanclub and Camper van Beethoven on this raggedy and careworn ep; if they can cut an album of songs this good, then Real Estate are going to have to settle for second place in a lot of people’s affections.

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