Reel to Reel Records

Ahh, if only …

“War is done!” The Habit bellows in the opening track on their debut album Lincoln Has Won. Keyboardist/vocalist Siobhan Glennon leads the way through the verses, with her male bandmates joining in on the choruses, sounding both joyous and as beat as you would expect on the backside of a siege. This is Civil War-era jugpunk at its finest: churning gee-tars (courtesy of Will Croxton and Brian Mendes) over top of a coccyx-thumper bassline pumped out by Eli Thomas. Drummer James Pelletier sounds like he’s cut the sleeves off his Union army uniform, turned his soldier’s hat around backwards, and commenced to thrash the hell out of his drum kit to let the world know: “War is done!” The ideal album-opener, “War is Done” hauls the curtain back on a collection of tunes that celebrate both an old America and a hopeful future.

Their roots may lie in Brooklyn, NY, but The Habit’s sound is a wild, free-ranging mix. When Glennon takes the mic, the band easily morphs into an edgy version of 10,000 Maniacs (“No Reason”) or a punkish Fairport Convention (dig the acoustic chug of “Won’t Go ‘Til Morning”, dissolving into a brilliant vocal round-de-round at its conclusion). Croxton, Mendes, and Thomas all provide their own vocal stylings, as well – whether it be in the Taj-Mahal-meets-Woody-Guthrie group singalong “Shout Together” or the stripped-to-the-marrow soul-wrings of “Pennies For Eyes”. The Habit can sound as raw as Crazy Horse at their loosest (“Blood On The Saddle”, two-minutes-and-fifty-nine seconds of lurch and smolder) or work tension and release like vintage Talking Heads, as witnessed on “Not Brooklin”: Pelletier and Thomas combine to lay down a drum/bass pulse that both comforts and warns. Glennon’s vocal is nothing but sweetness, but the fuzz-laden guitars that slowly build in the background can’t help but sound ominous. Things grind to a halt at the 2:00 mark; the guitars rev as Pelletier channels Keith Moon for a moment; and then the band takes off in a gale of joyous thrash and tumble before bringing it all back down to earth in quiet resolution.

The sonic world The Habit offers up is one that shape-shifts/time-shifts like a William Burroughs novel, in a way that is intriguing rather than confusing. Witness “Ballad Of”, whose wild-ass porch-stomp main theme meshes perfectly with the opener “War Is Done”, but sees fit to venture off into a guitar break and rhythm change-up about halfway through that blends doo-wop, surf, and heart-wrenching blues.

“Where the hell did that come from?” you ask.

Don’t worry about it, I say. Just enjoy it.