There's a moment in the middle of Alberta Cross' hard-driving and spectacular single ATX where guitarist/vocalist Petter Ericson Stakee howls darkly, "how does it feel to be on your own?" Stakee has either consciously (and brazenly) borrowed the line from Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone or else he's independently found the line hiding in plain sight--a marker of the strange, lonely, and cold times in which we find ourselves. While Dylan pointed the phrase at others, Stakee uses the line as a hard question for himself. However he came upon the line, it's still a powerful line that can be seen as the essential question behind the searching and visceral songs on Alberta Cross's powerful debut album Broken Side of Time.

Generating considerable buzz in America during the past year with powerhouse performances at Cochella and Bonnaroo as well as a high profile slot opening for the Dave Matthews Band (they record for Matthew's ATO records), Alberta Cross released Broken Side of Time in September and now seem poised to bust into the mainstream in 2010.
                                    

The band manages to synthesize the rootsier and earthier elements of groups like The Band and My Morning Jacket with a sharp and angular hard rock sensibility more akin to 90s alternative; they've clearly listened to Neil Young's collaborations with Sonic Youth. But the band is more than their influences, and manage to  craft an original and powerful rock album that speaks to a feeling of unease and displacement that seems to have taken hold.

The word that came to my mind when I first listened to the album was hungry. This is a hungry band, blood and guts injected into the music and performances.
                              
The band is currently based out of Brooklyn, though founding members Stakee and bassist Terry Wolfers originated in London and Sweden.

It's no surprise then that the songs on Broken Side of Time are thematically about being away from home, on one's own, in a strange and sometimes soulless city--Petter Stakee's icy high pitched howl perfectly underscoring homesick songs like City Walls and Ghost of the City. The steel pedal and piano adding an impressionistic homespun warmth.
Old Man Chicago, with its sweet country-blues flavor, sounds like it could have been written by Rick Danko or Levon Helm for The Band, while 3 Song Blues and Taking Control are smart mid-tempo rockers that recall (for me) bands 90s bands like Sloan or even Soup era Blind Melon.

The title track is a wailing, quiet/loud dirge with the stunning line, "we grew up in a broken side of time..." I can't help but think of young people, for whom this music is for, stepping out for the first time into a fractured and hurting world.

Broken Side of Time is rock music for the times.

 _{Alberta Cross plays the Khyber in Philly on Monday before embarking on a European tour. Look for them to tour America again this summer.}