Listening To >> Futurebirds' "Hampton's Lullaby"

I mentioned these guys, a couple of whom were in my high school class (¡hometown heroes!) (I feel an immature urge to do a TRL-style shout-out here), back here, and they just released their first full-length album on Tuesday!  I'd been eagerly awaiting it, and I'm already loving it. 

Though I personally think it's an annoying label, I guess it is sort of useful in giving you some sense of their sound, so I'll go ahead and tell you they are commonly called "alt-country," but luckily with the added, flattering qualifier that they are "what modern alt-country ought to sound like." I also read here a description of them being a "synthesis of the two extremes of Neil Young's yin and yang."

Here's an except from one of the reviews that I thought particularly rang true:

"What I like about the record and the band for that matter is that it feels like it actually comes from somewhere, comes from real people. We’re flooded by countless bands with clever names creating sounds in their bedrooms that are nice, passing fancy, but the keepers that we remember over the years are the ones that make personal connections." [Future Sounds]

Also check out an interview with them on Stark here.  (I particularly liked that their interview corroborates my personal opinion that the south has a disproportionate amount of pretty girls.)

The album is available here or on iTunes.
Myspace here.