I’ve “discovered” several hundred bands since I started college, and my tastes in music have gotten both more refined and more diverse as time has gone on. Harlan T. Bobo is one of my proudest discoveries–not because I’m all sooper ‘leet and special because no one else knows about him, but because wow. It’s a damn good album.

You can stop by The Store and sample two entire tracks. They are well worth it, and the album is a steal at $10.

The album has a great, dirty rock sound that feels like it captures the spirit of Memphis perfectly (although I’ve never been there, so I don’t know what I’m talking about). The vocals, the variety of approaches the songs take, and the lyrics are all superb–and so is the storytelling, both in the individual tracks and of the album as a whole. He entertwines the story of a failed, doomed love–his own, perhaps, although I have no idea whether the album is truly autobiographical–with alternate sweetness and harshness, and church organs make appearances in most of the songs, a great touch that makes the album just that much more sublime.

And so on. Just go listen to the tracks already, okay?