Hearts & Daggers: punked up outlaw country

Hearts & Daggers:
"Desperados Lullabye"
(from A Home for My Lonely Tears 2006. Buy it here.)
"High Noon"
(from 2004 demos)

I have come across some great music simply by keeping track of who's playing with bands that I already know and like, and that's pretty much the case with Hearts & Daggers. It was exciting enough to note that the Two Dollar Pistols were playing at the Pour House tonight (8/4) -- after their site got taken over by a porn site, and a number of John Howie solo performances, I was beginning to wonder if they were still a going concern. (Though they did have that excellent Superchunk cover on Songs for Sixty-five Roses, which was a good sign.) When I saw that Hearts & Daggers was playing as well, I vaguely remembered coming across them sometime before and filing them away under "look more closely later". I don't know why it took me so long to get back to them, but I'm really glad I did.

If the Two Dollar Pistols are mostly crying into their beers, Hearts & Daggers have had a few too many and are out to kick somebody's ass. My sense of country music history is way too vague to know if there's a more traditional precedent for their aggressive twang, but they fit right in with a lot of the Bloodshot Records crew (and their site picks up a lot of the visual aesthetic from Bloodshot, too.) Paired with the Two Dollar Pistols honky tonk, this should be a fine show for folks who like some heartfelt, unpolished country.

UPDATE 8/7:
Karen went to the show and has some pictures and video -- check it out!