Milwaukee’s Justin Scott & the Working Class exist at point where alt/indie country, country rock and Americana merge into a horizon that offers am original musical vista. Scott's voice alone is a unique aesthetic avatar: deeply gruff, bellowing and haggard in a way wholly apt for the lyrics of woe and disgruntlement to which he plies them over the six songs comprising his band’s debut EP.
The band supporting him negotiate between valleys of wooziness and hills of stridency in a sort of rural psychedelia. Amidst everything else The Working Class offer aesthetically, they interpolate intermittent Hispanic influences to create a sound even more compelling in its refusal to be pigeonholed. Spiritual and political pronouncements and allusions from Scott balance at the precipice of specificity and vagueness.
The cumulative effect of these half-dozen songs is an instant cult appeal that could translate as well to the stage of an open-minded honky-tonk as to a jam band’s opening act. It should make for intriguing listening to hear how Scott and his Class can maintain the same magic over the course of an entire album.
