(Broken Neck Records 2016)
Maybelle's Farewell
Sunrise After Sunset
He Didn't Know My Name Back Then
High On A Mountain
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
Goliath Coming Down
Lazy Bones
John Brown's Dream
Never Had A Waffle At The Waffle House
Mary The Elephant
Do You Dream In Color
No Blood In The Stone
Wouldn't Garth Brooks be spinning in his grave if he heard this platter from the Urban Pioneers? Well, he would be if he was dead. Or maybe it'd be better had he never been born at all and then a lot of that "new country" bollocks would never have seen the light of day. But who cares about that when there are grass-roots combos like the Urban Pioneers sticking six collective v-sign fingers up at em. Unlike a lot of bands from the Broken Neck stable, the Urban Pioneers were not new to me. I have their Addicted To The Road and Vehicle In Transit albums so was filled with glee when I got this, the latest sonic output from the trio of talented troubadours. I like to classify my music collection and in the genre field for Urban Pioneers I have Bluegrass/Hillbilly/Americana/Rockabilly/Folk. That pretty much tallies the musical concoction they brew up...well, there's a bit of gypsy stuff going on too but we don't want to get too bogged down in genres and just let the music speak for itself. Back in the early 90s there seemed to be a mini explosion of bands over this side of the pond and beyond trying to emulate all that was best about American roots music and to some extent Irish folk music. Bands like The Cropdusters, Ivor And The Engines, Tokyo Skunx etc. Now those bands were all great in their own right but you just can't top the real thing. That is to say, a band that are actually American, playing all manner of American roots music..with actual American accents! It's a bit like when I hear some American bands trying to do the Irish Folk Punk thing. No one can pull off an Irish accent and make it sound authentic unless you're actually Irish. I pull off a great Irish accent...because I'm Irish. But anyway, fuck me I go off on tangents sometimes, back to the music. It's not easy to sit down and listen to/review this album. It has that infectious quality of making you want to prise your arse out of the chair, slip in to some dungarees (or bottomless chaps) and dance a jig around the room. It is, for the most part, foot-stomping, good-time music. When I think of what most people (those brainwashed by the mass media) think is good music, and compare it what I know is good music (Urban Pioneers), I despair for the world and those brainwashed gobshites. I really do.
The O'Prez
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