Growl Bear, the alt-country, folk-rock, Americana band known for their raw, electric storytelling and distinct sound, has debuted their album, Tales of the Finger Lakes, Western New York & Beyond. It feels like you’ve been transported through the backroads of upstate New York with a soulful touch of their background in it.
Released on Friday, May 22, the record is a love letter to Rochester, Western New York, and Finger Lakes combined, blending folk, country, and indie rock into a cohesive, immersive experience, guiding you through Jeremy Button, writer and frontman’s hometown, history lessons embedded into the towns, and deeply personal tracks about his family.
The album visually walks listeners through vivid imagery and emotional depth in each track, including “Finger Lakes Wine,” which draws listeners into a fictional story that explores several Finger Lakes towns and gives you fictional characters and their adventures.
Musically, Tales of the Finger Lakes leans into Growl Bear’s signature sound: acoustic guitars, violin, and a folky sound that constructs the aesthetic of Americana and folk music through their string band edition of the album. The echoes of the strings in each song add to the musical brilliance of the album, but the vocals take center stage on this album, especially on “Orphan Train Mary”. The album isn’t afraid to experiment with an old-timey sound that makes each track feel like a time capsule. It’s an album that rewards listeners with layers of instrumentals and lyrics that unfold as a well-told story centered around Upstate New York.
Lyrically, Button and the band draw heavily from the landscapes throughout Western New York, tragic history, like in the song “The Lackawanna Limited (Death Waits in Wayland)” a breathtaking re-telling of a train wreck in Wayland in 1943, folklore of Western New York, which is told in “Scum Jumpin’( In the Erie Canal)”, and family, which is explored many times throughout the album with songs dedicated to his wife, Jillian Button and experiences with his family.
As the album escalates, it captures the bittersweet nostalgia of adolescence, life, and the appreciation of where you come from; it poetically pulls you into their world and how they feel about Western New York, and the experiences that come with that. The album serves as a microcosm of the record’s themes: a poetic ode to the region’s beauty and culture. Button’s lyrics are earthy and gritty, with darker themes like “Elizabeth Clawson, Thou Deservest to Die” that time-travel you into 1662 during the witch trials, and that takes you through his ninth-great-grandmother’s story, who was tried as a witch and survived. This fast-paced song drags you down the rabbit-hole of the suffering that women faced during the witch trials, while also pulling you through a personal re-telling of survival and conspiracy.
The album is a refreshing take on Americana and folk music, one that feels grounded in place rather than a romanticized love story of Western New York; it allows you to experience the flaws alongside the beauty. The mix between pain and joy grapples listeners with the reality of the album, but moreover, allows the band to carve out its own niche, particularly in its unapologetic embrace of regional identity. With Tales of the Finger Lakes, Western New York & Beyond, Growl Bear has crafted an album that’s both deeply personal and universally resonant. It’s an album for long drives, late-night campfires, and anyone who’s ever felt a connection to a place they call home.
Ultimately, Tales of the Finger Lakes, Western New York & Beyond isn’t just an album; it’s an invitation. An invitation to slow down, to listen closely to the stories woven into the land, and to find solace in the imperfect, unfiltered beauty of home. It reminds you of the quiet, enduring ties that bind us to the places and the people that we hold close. Growl Bear offers something that allows us to feel that tie: a soundtrack for the soul’s quiet wanderings, where every note feels like coming home.
For more of Growl Bear, visit growlbearmusic.com
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