Drug Rug
Paint the Fence Invisible
(Black & Greene, 2009)

As we prepare to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, it’s interesting to note how our musical past, as it’s wont to do, has risen up to remind us where we’ve come from and where we’ve been. For a few years now, a considerable number of independently releasing rock bands have been revisiting the folk flavors of the 1960s. Obviously, the whimsical sounds of psych-folk never really died—plenty of artists from Kelley Stoltz to Papercuts have been experimenting with that fuzzy neo-folk sound since well before the Fleet Foxes blew our collective mind with their stunning, CSNY-invoking harmonies. But I feel confident in saying it’s become a more rampant influence over the past two years. From the Beach Boys aesthetic entrenched in Panda Bear’s experimental opuses to the shiny ’60s pop of Telekinesis to the roots of country-folk found in bands like the Donkeys, the flower-power aesthetic has come back in a big way. And as is the fate of every trend that makes an impact on us, this resonance will likely lose its ubiquity as another musical age from way back follows on its heels. While I feel that we’re on the tail end of this ’60s entrenchment in indie music, there are still notable albums being released under that throwback umbrella.

Drug Rug is such a band, having risen during the heights of this explosive trend, releasing a solid EP earlier this year, Kitchen Tapes, and the full-length Paint the Fence Invisible just this past July. While the releases are quite different—the EP is more moody and psychedelic—both are ingrained in the folk-pop idealism that came to define the sound of the ’60s. On Paint the Fence Invisible, after being summoned into a sequence of tracks via the first song, the album appropriately moves into the quirky, nearly ambient “Follow.” And with that, the pace picks up, trotting into “Haunting You” with sweet girl/boy melodies and lyrics like, “Move across the land / Flee as fast as you can,” suggesting a want of certain freedoms and liberties so indicative of that bygone decade. This rolls right into what could actually be considered part two of the previous song, the similar-sounding “Never Tell”, which is also rife with lyrics that urge listeners to hold strong to an individualizing mindset: “Remember you were younger / When you left the light on to sleep by / Put down your broken mirror / The sun is light enough to see by.” From there, the band crafts a fanciful mood with the warm layers of “Don’t Be Frightened By the Devil”, the weary “Coffee in the Morning”, and the whimsical twee pop of “Sooner the Better.” One of the album’s strong points, besides its breezy melodies and plentiful hooks, is its consistency—Drug Rug has chosen a thematic and sonic vein and executed it throughout the record’s entire length.

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