Haunted House “Guess Who’s Not Coming To Dinner” Review

Minneapolis band Haunted House are a prime example of why judging a band by the genre they get lumped into is not always a good idea. The first thing I heard about the band was their self described style as a “jam band,” which ranks somewhere near Top 40 and smooth jazz as a genre that I actively work to avoid. Luckily I checked out their latest CD, Guess Who’s Not Coming To Dinner, as it is a wild and innovative mish-mash of sounds that shows a highly unique act. Apparently it will be the first of three CDs released by the band in the next year, and if the other LPs are as good as this one, there will be big things in store for the local group.

The first four songs of the album, starting with the demented “Oriental Rugs” all the way until the more restrained but none the less weirdly awesome “The Hooker’s Imagination,” are laced with psyched out keyboard driven rock and roll. Frontman Mike Watton mixes in his Issac Brock-like strained growl with the classic sounding but still mildly warped instrumentation that the band (Cole Claerhout, Jon Davis and Adam Patterson) meld together. The songs are neither conventional nor overtly abstract, always walking a line that keeps one foot in noisy avant garde music and another in good old fashioned rock, which creates songs that are engaging without being too sugary sweet. “Middle of the Drums” and “The Plantation” reach out a little more to the freaky side of the band with tribal drums and more electronic flourishes that show the bands more outlandish, twitchy dance rock side. “Mirror” is another more traditional track before segueing into the excellent “Let God Have His Way,” which starts out with what sounds like a blissed-out hip hop sample before Watton and the gang charge in to add their schizophrenic touch. The disc ends with the jittery rocker “The Coliseum” before closing with the soulful and anthemic “Died in an Arena.”

Haunted House don’t fit nicely into any easy categorization, which is a huge selling point. Some of their songs sound ripped straight from the ’70s, while other sound like they were taken from a particularly insightful acid trip. No matter what itch the band decides to scratch on any given track, they come across as innovative and powerful, clearly adapt at bouncing between various genres. If this is what jam bands sound like, count me in.

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Also: Mike Watton of Haunted House: Favorite Albums of the Decade