Antler

The debut album by Boston roots-rockers Antler doesn't fit into any particularly neat categories, which is part of its charm. The opening "Tombstones and Cigarettes" feels very much like Green on Red's mid-'80s mash-up of post-punk and country, but that rolls directly into the much darker "1975," with its squalling distorted guitar and threateningly slow pulse; it sounds more like a less crazed Queens of the Stone Age. The rest of the album moves back and forth between alt-country and stoner rock, and for the most part, it's a combination that works surprisingly well. The main exception is the overwrought "Blood on the Moon," which singer Craig Riggs oversings in an inappropriately stentorian manner (think Dennis DeYoung of Styx at his most vocally bloated) that's all the more frustrating because it has one of the album's strongest melodies. On songs where Riggs dials it back, like "Dead by Valentines" (which features an appealingly-'70s arena rock instrumental section), he's a much stronger frontman; luckily, that's most of the time, making Antler is a promising debut that suggests better still to come.