3 out of 5

Label: Shangri-La Records

Produced by: Grifters

This is such a strange, mixed bag of an album.

Most of the Grifters’ catalogue has a fair amount of oddball filler splashed about, but that’s not found on One Sock Missing: even its minute long experiments are songs, and the lyrics (as far as whats intelligible) remain pretty on point, swirling around various snarky life observations, possibly made while inebriated.  The sensibility suggested by the album title is rather fitting, though: the disc feels halved, stylistically, partially composed and bursting with ideas, and then partially wandering, letting things go on for too long or drop off too soon.  There’s also something of a divide between joyous rockers (opener Bummer has one of their best, rootsiest riffs) and noisy and genius experimentation – the last three tracks are all standouts, solidifying some of the lesser moments the populate the disc’s middle – but One Sock Missing never feels like it exactly reconciles these styles.  Instead, you get some halfway committed tracks that maybe knock out great riffs but don’t seem to do much with them (Tupelo Moan, Corolla Hoist) or full-steam-ahead energy that rattles across bridges and riffing without much focus (Teenage Jesus).

All of this is pretty interesting stuff, but when you land on those standout tracks, it draws quite a comparison, and gives the disc more of a hit and miss feel than it might have when taken a song at a time.

The bookends of the album are essential Grifters listening; the middle can grow on you with time, but it’s possible the group needs those filler tracks in order to prop up a fuller album’s worth of material.