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Alberta Cross
Hairiest band at this year’s festival? I’ll nominate this quintet, whose members hail from London, Sweden, and New York and whose hirsuteness does a pretty good job of telegraphing their stylistic druthers. Brit bios tend to harp on The Band and Neil Young, but The Band’s bailiwick was classic Southern R&B, and I don’t hear none of that here. Young is a slightly better cognate, though more on the Zuma-Ragged Glory roar-tip than his acoustic side. Actually, the hippie vibe that Alberta Cross better taps is the post-millennial kind as represented by Southern rock revivalists like Kings of Leon and My Morning Jacket before they started erupting in Prince-like funk. In fact, lead singer Petter Ericson Stakee displays that same high, mournful tenor that MMJ’s Jim James sports when he’s feeling Zimmermanish.
The group’s striking debut album, The Broken Side of Time, released last fall, is stoner rock at its most lugubrious. Though sometimes the tempos rev faster than a lope, the power of the songs is in the concentrated guitar attack, which can occasionally reach Sabbath-worthy volumes. More dense than melodic, it’s music that fills up space in a jiffy. They could easily fill that big vacuum in front of the Green Stage, but I’d prefer them in a place where their leisurely song structures and loose-limbed arrangements have a chance to breathe. I’d suggest the Field of Heaven, but a lot of people who hang out there expect to dance. Alberta Cross may be hairy, but they’re definitely not a boogie band.
