The Paper Hearts

Here's a nice little slice of Americana. The guysThese guys like to turn the guitars up loud, reminds me of The Bottle Rockets and Slobberbone. According to their website they've broken up or at least taken some sort of hiatus. They did release this EP which came across my desk yesterday: Hard To Smile. It's only 5 songs long so it escapes the number one thing that puts me off Americana music: it all starts to sound the same unless the band is really innovative. I wouldn't call the Paper Hearts particularly innovative. They are, however, very good at what they do. There's some really nice boy/girl harmonies on some of the tracks which lend themselves very well to these tales of heartbreak and drinking. As you can imagine with a title like Hard To Smile it's a bit of a maudlin affair. But there are only 5 tracks on the EP so it's over before you've finished the beer you started into crying into.

From the EP Hard To Smile:

Circles

From the 2003 Album Plans For The Past:

I Used To Know