Seattle’s Blunt Mechanic to perform tonight at Mississippi Studios

September 2, 2010

Ben Barnett is a musician who has, all his life, documented experiences through song. After releasing eight albums, six singles and five splits as Kind of Like Spitting over the course of a decade, retiring the moniker and reinventing himself as Music Director of Seattle’s Paul Green School of Rock, Barnett has now emerged triumphant with a new band, Blunt Mechanic, and said band’s debut full-length, World Record. Both band and album tip heavy on the riffaged hooks and light on the darkness; big on the thumbs up–no time for the thumbs down–and now, at long last, he’s taking his band ON THE ROAD! The tour kicks off on Tuesday, and Blunt Mechanic is HERE IN PORTLAND AT MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS on 9/1, Wednesday!

It is far from hyperbolic to enthusiastically assert that this album—Blunt Mechanic’s first—is Barnett’s finest work to date. Considering the critically-acclaimed and cultishly-followed body of work he has amassed over the past 15 years, it’s understandable that one could lazily dismiss that claim before having heard the onslaught of unstoppable, charming hooks, impeccably constructed songs, heart-wrenching, moving, uplifting storytelling, brilliant turns of phrase and vocal/instrumental interplay that defines World Record. Barnett has here created the culmination of his musical and personal explorations in a way that is powerful, relatable, inspirational, ineffable and communicable, and there’s just no stopping that kind of force.