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Willard Grant Conspiracy: Songs of Suffocation and Hard-Won Hope

Nick Hasted, The Independent, June 1999

IT'S AN embarrassment of riches, a shotgun marriage of two underselling headliners that works an instant alchemy. On a bill that began at an ungodly 6.30 with the excellent, sly English singer-songwriter Peter Bruntnell, Willard Grant Conspiracy from Boston (by way of Californian desert small-towns) and Hazeldine (Albuquerque, New Mexico out of North Carolina) are both buzzing hybrids, Western bands that break the bonds of the "alt.country" straitjackets some have forced on their music. Both defeat all expectations tonight, in the process turning this storm-hit corner of Camden into an American dream.

Total word count of piece: 500

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