Cory Hanson’s new album, called Western Cum, doesn’t have the artist-as-critic-of-America feel as, say, Pedro the Lion’s “corporate cum” line did, off of his underground hit album, Control. The album is steeped in clever metaphors that make for a hundred interpretations, and though there is desire and angst in spades on the album, there is no overt socio-political bent to the album, minus the lyric on the opening song, “When clouds are gathering like police”.

But an album title is just a piece of the puzzle, as super provocative or suggestive as it might be. For all I can tell, listening through the album, it could have to do with the orgasmic guitars that might start a new genre called “indie prog,” that might make become a mainstay around the globe, like a chain of McDonald’s restaurants one day. “I told them I was in a box / I knew I could never fit in,” Hanson sings on the song “Twins.” And he certainly doesn’t fit into any box.

When thinking of who to compare him to, I’m struck with the realization that he’s so unique and impressive, with his wailing guitars, his sometimes mild, sometimes adventurous voice, and his brilliant absurdist lyrics, (particularly with his stellar guitar work,) people will be comparing other bands to HIM in due time, I think. If I were forced to make a comparison, I think it’s a bit like what the Beatles would sound like if they had a baby with Smashing Pumpkins’ more hooky guitar songs. Say the Beatles’ had survived, for example; what they would sound like today.

He has a way at hooking the mind and suggesting meaning much more than explicitly saying what he’s thinking. Like his song, “Housefly,” which is about an experience nearly anyone can relate to (“Trying to kill a housefly as it thickens up the air,”) but which talks as well about being a criminal versus a victim of crime, among other things. It is an album that you can take at surface value, or dive deep into its waters and perhaps find Hanson’s thoughts on the West and sex and “the black sails of a ghost ship”, after all.

It’s a beautiful album, from a creative mind with few rivals, in my estimation. He’s won a new fan in me and I think will in many other people who give it even their cursory attention. Like the pushed-to-the-max guitars on “Persuasion Architecture,” there is a feeling that Hanson pushed everything as far as he possibly could in creating the album: the sound, the concept, the production. Definitely worth checking out.

Order Western Cum by Cory Hanson HERE