THE RETURN OF BUFFALO TOM

When the whole alternative thing exploded in the late 80s/early 90s, Buffalo Tom was there, and they were consistently one of the best groups around.  Three ordinary guys whose biggest crime in the dawning days of the AGE OF SARCASM & IRONY was an incredible earnestness.  They wore their hearts on their sleeves and had no time for the whiners, the doom-mongers, the tragic junkies or the brooding pretty boys.  And so, of course, they were always runners-up in the fame game.  They made guest appearances on TV shows, had their music used in commercials, jumped through those hoops that were supposed to propel them towards mega-stardom, but they never found it.

So, here we are, almost 26 years to the day after their creative high point LET ME COME OVER (not that they ever released any clunkers), and they have a new album out.  QUIET & PEACE is quintessential Buffalo Tom – it mixes up the harder rocking sounds and the mellower, more introspective stuff.  They’re a guitar band at heart, but they’ve gotten more expansive as they’ve gotten older and made room for keyboards, strings and other bits of subtle coloration.  If anything, their most recent releases (3 albums in the past 20 years) seem to stylistically harken back to another artistic peak, 1995’s overlooked SLEEPY-EYED, which felt like the last album by the band when the band was their full time job.

They’re older now, maybe they’re wiser, and they’re definitely no less sincere than they were in their heyday.  This is what the direction of alternative guitar music might have been if it hadn’t been co-opted and run into the ground by the Snark Patrol and the Tortured Junkie Brigade.  Our loss.