Ha Ha Tonka

Named after a state park of the same name in the Ozarks, Ha Ha Tonka plays the sort of Americana that would be right at home in an episode of Prairie Home Companion. Although its lyrics are focused on imagery and themes you’d expect from a poet laureate from rural Missouri, the band never comes off like it’s trying to cop a traditional sound. Rather, it embodies an aesthetic that emerged naturally from being around the people and culture of the region — not unlike how William Faulkner’s fiction had to have come from someone with deep and direct experience of the South. With Death of a Decade, Ha Ha Tonka proves it can incorporate modern sounds and speak eloquently of everyday truths at home.