Blitzen Trapper @ The Ogden | 08.12

Denver took its time showing up for the Portland sextet last night. Adam Haworth Stephens’ fantastic opening set gained momentum in step with the size of the slowly growing audience. Blitzen Trapper has been through Colorado five times since last summer, and last night it was apparent that they have earned their open invitation.

Blitzen Trapper’s newest album, Destroyer of the Void, is a step further into their growing strength, folk story telling. They almost played the record note for note save a few selections from 2008’s well received Furr, plus a preview of the next album along with some mellow covers. They avoided all of their overdriven, frenzied early material, to the disappointment of certain sections of audience. Their sound may be a little more palatable to a wider swath of listiners now, compared to their self-produced days of Wild Mountain Nation, but the qualities that make them a true original are still there. They put complicated chord progressions that take strange paths to resolution on top of thumping tempos, injecting cascading harmonies in the hardest spots.

Gravely voiced frontman, Eric Earley, had a solo stint of three songs mid-set, which helped to solidify the tone of the band’s material. His lyrics rove between cryptic metaphors that sometimes seem like non sequiturs and simple themes of love, loss, and coming of age. The weight of the poetry is only broken up when the band shares and steals the stage. It’s obvious that Blitzen Trapper loves to play together, and can’t get enough of it. Their short, sophisticated songs are almost always transitioned by either highly calculated or whimsically improvisational noisy interludes. It’s hard to say which when they’re all constantly smiling goofily at each other. When there is an actual break for banter, the band’s deadpan story telling kills.

Blitzen Trapper is an experience best enjoyed live. They tweak the delivery of their expected tracks. They try things for the first time on stage. Last night Earley got some coaching for the lyrics to “The Tailor” from an excitable audience member in the front row. The short studio cuts will definitely give you musical and lyrical candy to chew on, but you will miss seeing the glue that has kept these guys performing together for a decade.

I will be in line for tickets to the next Denver Blitzen Trapper show. And if the pattern holds, they’ll be here evey couple of months!