The Strapping Fieldhands started out in the early '90s playing "Appalachian inbred squonk" on junk shop instruments. The band's sound evolved quickly and drastically in the time leading up to their outstanding 1994 LP Discus (Omphalos), but even their latest album, 2002's relatively refined The Third Kingdom (Omphalos), retains much of the slobbering, delirious quality of their first singles. Though the Fieldhands are based in Philadelphia, PA, they sound like denizens of some stunningly pretty British backwater where people fiddle with radio antennae to pick up faint broadcasts of skiffle, traditional English folk and '60s psychedelic rock. They're equally adept at shambolic, Syd Barrett-style balladry and barnburning freak rock reminiscent of Pere Ubu or the Godz; usually they strike a balance between the two and end up with music that is self-consciously strange but unpretentious, and beautiful but more than a little unsettling.
Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Artist biography from last.fm