Loose Koozies

A familiar name around RSTB, Detroit’s Loose Koozies add a less cosmic shade to the current alt-country corral. Despite a more grounded approach, the band still elevates the listener on Passing Through You. With a day job drizzle hanging over the album, the band taps into the ‘90s strains that surfaced on Uncle Tupelo, The Jayhawks, and Son Volt, dipping quarter draft drinkers in a bit of grit and growl. The band’s songs flicker with a loose fluorescent flicker, just waiting for a turn on the jukebox. Like fellow trad wayseeker Emily Rose, the band’s songs have a way of unbuttoning the listener, feeling like old friends crackling through the AM static.

The songs on Passing Through You don’t just retread the Koozies’ past, though, and the band’s not entirely afraid to stray from their formula. A burble of synths bubble though on “The Butterfly,” finding a neon-ringed 80s footing that cracks the Koozies mold while the sandpaper pipes of E.M. Allen keep them anchored adjacent to their sound. Likewise, “Highway’s Gone” finds the band dabbling with a bit of the cosmic dust of their peers, but never committing wholesale. They feel much more comfortable slow dancing around the duet “I Won’t Be Leaving Here (Unless It’s With You”) and catching air through half-mast windows on “Wobbly Wheel.” The Motor City outfit sometimes gets left out of indie country’s new roundup, but the new LP is further proof that they’re a vital voice among its ranks.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.