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Karl Groeger Jr. owns a great record store- Looney Tunes. After selling music on the retail side for awhile, Groeger has decided to jump into the ring and start his own label, Brookvale Records. When you listen to his first two releases, including Hotel of the Laughing Tree, it’s easy to hear why he jumped to sign these guys and start the business venture. Hotel of the Laughing Tree is the perfect indy band. They’re like a cross between The Black Keys and Mumford & Sons. Their songwriting if awesome and the album that they were able to create… just isn’t an album that’s created anymore. You can tell how attentive this band was to detail. The instrumentation is unmatched in these songs with what these guys were able to do. The driving part of the songs are great, but the accents and the extras thrown in to all of these songs set Hotel of the Laughing Tree apart from other bands out there. The lone weakness on this album are the lyrics… sometimes it seems that these guys are just coming up with things that rhyme and not focusing enough on telling a story or saying something meaningful. I would say about a third of the songs have some problems with lyrics. The lyric problem is overcome by the plush design of the music, that’s the good news. Hotel of the Laughing Tree is a great new band. Their debut is an original piece of art that's perfect for people clamoring for more alternative music on the market.