Bark Hide and Horn - National Road

Bark Hide and Horn is a four-piece folk-rock group from Portland. With their dynamic, passionate live shows and lush recordings, Bark Hide and Horn are shimmying out on a distinctive limb of the indie-folk family tree.

A combination of acoustic guitar on running drumbeats with additional spice of vibraphone, glockenspiel, penny whistle, trumpet, mandolin, church organ, ephemeral synth and junkyard percussion. The vocal harmonies just make things much more interesting.

National Road, the band's first full-length, uses the full range of colors in Bark Hide and Horn's sonic palette. Digging deep into a basement closet full of stringed instruments, horns, odd percussion, and old electronic noise-makers, the boys flesh out their live sound with rich orchestrations, choral arrangements, and sonic experiments. Inspired by Andy's collection of old National Geographic magazines, the record tells a tale about Melville Bell Grosvenor, editor of the magazine from 1957-'67. The grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, Melville was an innovator and (in Andy's imagination) a madman. Possessed by the spirit of his grandfather, Melville takes a mystical journey through the perspectives of the silenced voices in National Geographic articles--an enslaved honey ant, a lovelorn treesnail, the disgruntled wife of a staff writer, even Ham, the first chimpanzee in outer space. With its wide variety of voices and sounds, National Road swells up like our bloated nation, bursting forth as the singular vision of an up-and-coming band.

National Road was released on August 12, under Boy Howdy Records. Click here to preview the album.