The Culver City-based band The Alpine Camp came together as an experiment to see if a band could be created using only roots instruments, instruments that include banjos, steel guitars and others that are more often used to create Country or Bluegrass music. Once band founders and main songwriters Chris Bell and Charles Etienne settled on their style, others were brought in to fill out the band’s sound. Along with Bell on guitar and vocals and Etienne on piano and vocals, the rest of the band consists of bassist Jeff Stella, drummer Shad Wilhelm, Bob Hamilton on banjo and Jamison Hollister on pedal steel. Together, The Alpine Camp creates a sound that brings to mind artists like Mumford and Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show, even The Grateful Dead. This musical blend of Americana can be found on The Alpine Camp’s newly-released two-song EP called Adventure.
The first track on the two-song release from The Alpine Camp is the song entitled “Regrets of a Mountaineer”. The track leads off the two tracks with a sound that features a quick-tempo feel to the music. On this track, the band takes a strong beat and combines it with a country-flavored sound. The combination brings to mind a style that will remind some of something from The Doobie Brothers but with a lot more twang to it. The track is one of the rare instances where a song features the entire ensemble as each of the musicians adds an equal amount of influence to the music. As strong as the main part of the song is, once the band hits the refrain of the song, the track picks up a lot of energy. The resulting feel of the music during the refrain of the song will make the listener pay close attention. The track is definitely a song that could get the band a lot of exposure.
The second track to be included on the Adventure EP from The Alpine Camp is “Seven Miles”. Where the song “Regrets of a Mountaineer” finds the band creating a fast-paced track with a lot of energy, the band slows things down quite a bit with the song “Seven Miles”. The country/rock feel of the piece brings to mind the playing and writing style of a certain Rock And Roll Hall of Famer. As The Alpine Camp and their music would fall into the same musical category of singer-songwriter Leon Russell, it should not come as much of a surprise that the track of “Seven Miles” appears to contain more than just a little influence from Russell in the songwriting and the instrumentation on the track. Aside from the writing of the track itself, the biggest indications of the Russell influence is in the use of banjo on the track, as well as the way the guitar sounds within the track.
The Adventure EP, the newest release to come from The Alpine Camp, ends up being a quick two-song release that will give the listener the opportunity to hear two different styles of writing from the band in a very short amount of time. And while the two tracks that appear on the release have very different styles and sounds to the music, it is the quality of the music produced by the band on those two tracks still indicates the talent of all involved. If you are a fan of bands like Old Crow Medicine Show, Mumford and Sons, even Leon Russell, The Alpine Camp is one band that should be added to your musical library. And good place to start is with their EP called Adventure.
Reviewer: Matheson Kamin
Rating: ***** (five stars)
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