Son Of The Velvet Rat

"The slow burn noir-folk of Son of the Velvet Rat feels like reading a great short story. Altziebler's voice takes lead, sounding like a cross between Dylan, Tom Waits, and a dry lakebed. This is a voice that takes on the cadence and the patient proselytizing of folks like Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Lambchop, Townes Van Zandt, Waits, and even Joni Mitchell, at times (as on "Blood Red Shoes").—WEEKLY VOLCANO (US) "A triumph of an album ... jagged and edgy at one moment, reflective and soul-searching the next; these songs quickly come to haunt you." —R&R MAGAZINE (UK) "Solitary Company" is straight whiskey. Tom Waits would be proud." —AMERICANA HIGHWAYS (US) “European sense of faded grandeur in a gothic American landscape with hints of The Walkabouts and The Handsome Family allied to visions of David Lynch movies.” —BLABBER'N' SMOKE (UK) "On their new album, Ghost Ranch (Fluff & Gravy Records), drum loops and saloon piano, violin and cicada drones, hanging chimes and pounded metal combine to create a jittery soundtrack for all the true believers and false messiahs, county fairs and shooting ranges, feral banners fluttering atop battered pickup trucks, and the roadside carnage of an accidental police state ratcheting into focus. All delivered in what fan and collaborator Lucinda Williams once called Georg’s “great sexy-gravelly voice,” leavened by Heike’s translucent harmonies, like desert roses circling a tattooed heart." Paul Cullum