Fan of Appalachian Alpha Rock? Of course you are. That being the case, you’re going to absolutely love the new album from the genre’s leading lights, Scattered Hamlet.

But what is AAR? I hear the less enlightened amongst you ask. Basically, it’s a snub-nosed mix of latter-day Warrior Soul and the Texas Hippie Coalition, but whilst that may sound a little limiting, Scattered Hamlet are actually musically agile enough to keep things moving along nicely, in the process actually transcending the niche they’ve named for themselves.

Closing track See You In Hell, for instance, is a quasi-epic slice of Southern rock that draws a line through to the glory days of names like Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet, suggesting that the roots of this band are healthy and venerable indeed. The occasional harmonica blasts from vocalist Adam ‘The Appalachian Apostle’ Joad add to this feel of nostalgia, leavening the more obvious flashes of groove metal to create a sound that’s as everyman as they come. And I mean that in a good way.

On the superb Lowdown you’ll get blasts of Stuck Mojo assaulting the senses thanks to the lithe and limber lead guitar of Sean ‘The Nostradamus of Southern Rock’ Shepperd, but the bottom line here is that, despite wearing their influences very much on the oil-caked sleeves of their denim jackets, this band oozes so much personality of it’s own that you quickly forget who it is they sound like at any given moment and just get down to digging the living shit out of the choons…

This ability to appeal to just about everyone would appear to set Scattered Hamlet in very good stead for the future. If they can continue to crank out new material of the quality of Death or Dishonor moving forward, then this looks like one party that’s set to last for a long, long time…

Stereo Overthrow releases on November 12th…