Hot in Portland: Drew Grow & The Pastors' Wives

posted in: Artist FeaturesRock

From the humble basement of a Portland, Oregon residence, upstart indie record label Amigo/Amiga Recordings has just released the self-titled debut album from Godfather artist Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives. The record dropped officially on Tuesday, September 14th, and is available on white vinyl with a digital download. The band recorded their debut full-length themselves in their home, crooning and plunking around on pianos and wooden things, singing their hearts out, and their passion is palpable.

Drew Grow–who has been making music for over 15 years–and his band play a kind of music that’s best described as alt-gospel. Distorted, it’s got the stomps, it’s got the holler; it’s cathartic. It’s soulful and wise; it’ll take you on a heavenly breeze to the river one moment, and punch you in the gut the next (in a good way). Rollicking; full of impassioned vocals with the feel of the album being more the buttress than musical key or precision. This album is so full of impressive melody and harmony, story, color, heart, joy, and trembling honesty that listening to it only drives you to step outside. Their harmony and choiresque lines have been likened to Spiritualized, but with Grow and his band’s breadth and preternatural sense of variation, this comparison falls short. The song Bootstraps is reminiscent of the ever fuzzed-out BRMC, who did dip into gospel and Americana for an album but never seemed to wrangle punk, gospel, Americana and shoegaze together as seamlessly and as fluid as Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives.

The standout third track, Friendly Fire harkens to the greats: Cash, Waits (circa Mule Variations) and at the same time nothing else ever recorded. Grow has an astoundingly talented group of three alongside him in Jeremiah Hayden (who runs the label too) on drums, vocals and percussion; Kris Doty, who plays the standup bass and contributes vocals, and Seth Shaper on keys, slide guitar, and you guessed it: vocals.  My two favorite tracks on this album are Hook, and It All Comes Right.

Check out the band performing “Company” live below.

By Paul G. Maziar

Paul G. Maziar is a writer and published author, newly relocated from Brooklyn to Portland, OR. His writing has been featured in BlackBook Mag, ISM Quarterly, BPM Mag, Lost in a Supermarket, Celeste Magazine (Mexico), The Tripwire, and ‘The Good Things About America’ Anthology.