Megafaun

Promo pictures confirm what the banjo plucks and serene harmonies of the new song "Volunteers" imply: The three men collectively known as Megafaun all have beards. The band's damaged take on Americana is more than merely a melting pot of domestic influences; it's an aural history of the chin-engulfing facial hair. Megafaun's music has echoes of Woodstock's chin-strapping protest songs; it's dense with furry, Sgt. Pepper-era psychedelia; it's patchy with the squiggles of free-jazz legend Ornette Coleman, and it grows with the abandon of noise rock's unkempt lumberjacks. In the end, however, the band writes organic, intimate songs of solitude and longing built for mountainous landscapes and infinite skies — lullabies for nights kept warm by a campfire and a bearded blanket made for one.