Digawolf
Yellowstone
Album · Alternative · 2019
They may hail from one of Canada’s northernmost cities, but Yellowknife’s Digawolf exude an authentically swampy, Southern blues-rock swagger on their fourth album, Yellowstone. On the opening one-two gut-punch of “By the Water” and “Broken Bone”, the group lean into a bruising boogie sound steeped in fuzz and voodoo, pushing frontman Jesse James Gon’s raspy voice to its most ravaged extremes. But Yellowstone doesn’t sacrifice Gon’s penchant for warm, folksy storytelling, as he makes like a frontier-roaming Leonard Cohen on the romantic, sandswept title track and presents an affectionate portrait of his small-town Indigenous upbringing on the brass-sweented serenade “Northern Love Affair”.