Critic's Review
Steve Huey, All Music Guide
Elbo Finn describes their music as "folk-core"; the tag hints at the primacy of acoustic folk-rock in their style and their penchant for crossing into occasional hard-rock territory, but it misses the band's strong prog rock inclinations. With their emphasis on composition and epic-sounding structures, most of the songs on Cryptogamy Kills Cowboy seem designed to evoke the grandeur and wide-open spaces of the West -- sort of like folk-rock versions of Led Zeppelin epics filtered through the neo-hippie sensibilities of bands like Blues Traveler and Phish. Elbo Finn's reach exceeds its grasp on much of the material, coming off as an ambitious college bar band in need of further development. However, their sound is quite distinctive, and stronger material could well put them over the top.
