Where the Wild Things Are

posted in: Artist Features • Pop

Leaving civilization behind and heading into the wild to get back to a simpler way of life can lead to one of several outcomes: You eat some sort of poisonous plant by accident and it’s game over, or you return to society an enlightened version of your former self. Buckeye Knoll is the happy outcome of songwriter Doug Streblow’s wilderness sabbatical. Taking a backpack, notebook and guitar into the California woods, Streblow emerged months later with songs that would seed his new project. There’s no doubt that Streblow is a pop-punk kid at heart. His strident, earnest vocals have emo written all over them. But for Buckeye Knoll, Streblow’s pop instinct is tempered with an appealing folksiness. I Roll has the singer trading verses with singer Emily Moldy, a harmonic call and response that gives way to a crashing chorus. If you’re looking for more evidence of Streblow’s pop pedigree, see The Melody Scene, a driving melee of grungy, chugging guitars, thrashing drums and the singer’s sinewy vocals tethering it all together. The woods can make you wiser, but they can also make you more feral. We’re digging the combination.