I Hear You

Seattle’s venerated Sup Pop Records’ latest signing, Georgia sonic mudslingers Arbor Labor Union, is a throwback to the heady period in the late-1980s that birthed the genre of grunge. Think Southern Rock that doesn’t suck (sorry, Allman Brothers)—by way of cheap beer, lava lamps, claustrophobic humidity and isolated dirt roads to nowhere—and you’ll be halfway to grasping what Arbor Labor Union is all about. The other half is, of course, loud guitars, thundering and rumbling over one another, with riffs grinding and tearing at the belly of the beast. All songs on I Hear You are mid-tempo with plenty of room for the guitars to stretch out. Album highlight “Radiant Mountain Road” takes tight, brawny chords driven by a gunshot snare down a hypnotic expressway to your skull.