On Draw Near, Aux Meadows rises and drifts with a hazy grit, like a slowly coasting dust storm.

Oakland’s own take on the varied cosmic Americana sound has always been high on atmospherics and instrumental texture, but this new album finds the group leaning a little further into the twang and the earthiness of their style. While songs like “Permanent (For Now)” sound like if Neu! scored a Sam Peckinpah film, with extensive synth use and a motorik beat underneath a bed of dusty guitars, there are far more tracks that emphasize the group’s mastery of country instrumentation.

Many of the album’s tracks mix acoustic strumming, pedal steel and dobro with waves of subtle keyboards and AM radio hiss, which together highlights the lonesomeness of their ‘high and lonesome sound.’ Yet where all of the group’s many strengths and sonic extremes blend together probably the best and most equally, is on the mini western-epic that is “Rooms Without End.”

With moaning fiddle, rusted guitar lines and synth pulses that thump out the song’s rhythm like a robotic heartbeat, this is possibly the clearest definition of kosmische country that you’re going to find this year.

Click here to grab your copy from Eiderdown Records today.

-KH