Tulsa reviewed
Tulsa
I Was Submerged
(Park The Van)
Tulsa are from Boston and sound like neither city. Their second EP (first physical), I Was Submerged, is as homeless as the wind that seems to blow through its seven tracks.
Comparisons to My Morning Jacket and Band Of Horses are inevitable, but what echoes in Tulsa’s substantial reverb isn’t the prospect of sunny, crossover appeal — it’s desperation. Aside from the hopeful, largely instrumental “I Feel Great,” discontent traffics freely here, via paranoia (“He’s my enemy I know”), paralyzing indecision (“Now you’re in the foothills tossing a dime”), and the burden of simply being (“Life won’t stop”). The band surround the haunting vocals not with indifference, but add their two cents almost secretly, as the roadtrip psychedelia of “Shaker” learns when the guitar solo ends with an aggravated feedback swell. If this is what they’re like submerged, it’ll be interesting to hear what happens when Tulsa come up for air.
— Steve Forstneger
Click here to download “Mass.”
