Sunday, December 29, 2019

The Red Lights Gang "Songs About Sin"

(Crazy Love Records 2019)

She Put A Spell On Me (My Baby)
Trail Of A Broken Heart
Mark
I Ain't Playing God
Sin Is My Good Brother
I Am The Rat

Brazil. Not a country that immediately springs to mind when you think of a honky-tonkin' rockabilly good time! Unless of course you happened across The Red Lights Gang playing a show in their home country. The boys have been treading the boards since 2009 and this, to the best of my knowledge, is only their second release. At least it's the second album by them to enter my bulging collection of bop-tinged beauties. If you haven't checked out their first release, 2013's 13 then do so. You're missing out. You're equally missing out if you don't snap up this 12 incher of black throbbing gristle (PC disclaimer: other colours are available). Rootsy twang sits astride some finely slapped rockabilly bass. Add to this Américo's drawling vocals and you have an outfit that mix the darker side of roots music with the knee-slapping beat of rockabilly but don't do so in a throwback way. No siree! The quintet make these classic influences sound current. Maybe it's the lyrical content, maybe it's the chord structures. Whatever it is, I like it! Crazy Love Records have gone ballistic again and released this album, as alluded to earlier, on a multitude of colours on big ol' heavy slabs of vinyl. Fans of roots music in all its guises will lap this up; but The Red Lights Gang play in such a way that those dwelling in the underworld of rockabilly, neo rockabilly and psychobilly (at least those who appreciate where the latter stems from) will also have erect nipples poking through their shirts!


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Saturday, December 28, 2019

The Minestompers "Porno Mags & Body Bags"

(Crazy Love Records 2019)

Shellac Smile
Bone Breaking Beat
Vinyl Wonderland
Whirlwind
Attack Of The Space Sluts From Planet C.U.N.T. 6
Porno Mags
Pogo The Clown
Unleashed
Cop Killer
Demon Up My Arse
Suburban Savages
For A Fistful Of Shlonz
One Last Record

The Minestompers. One of the very few bands in psychobilly that don't rely on a slapped upright bass to sound...psychobilly. It's actually quite refreshing to hear a bass guitar for a change. It suits their sound much better anyway. Once again, vocalist Dave is in full-on hiccup mode and how these lads are not on some kind of register for sexual deviants is beyond me. It's all fairly mid-tempo by psychobilly's standards too which also works for the band. The album basically takes up from where their first self-titled release ended. The trademark Minestompers sound is stamped all over it. I can certainly detect an Ein Bier Bitte-era Coffin Nails influence but with the vocal stylings of '83 Guana Batz only harder. And yes, that is a cover of Body Count's Cop Killer! Sometimes second albums can sound the death knell for a band as they "progress" from their initial sound. This isn't the case here. The quartet of quasi-sex offenders have quite simply continued along the same path, but having garnered more studio experience, this album sounds better than the first....which I loved.
The album has been released on a multitude of colours on vinyl and good auld CD. Now for the big pain in the arse of linking everything up for all you lazy shites so all you have to do is click and spend. The things I do for you, and I get no thanks for it. Tut.


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Sunday, December 15, 2019

The Devil 'n' Us "Still Devil's Music"

(Wolverine Records 2019)

Graveyard Of My Dreams
Burning Holes
Wolfhowl
The Shovel
Shake Some Dust
Dragged Down To Hell
Get Off The Road
My Little Sister
Man In The Shadow
Sell Your Shit
Puttin' On The Ritz
This Party Sucks

 The Devil 'n' Us are very much a super-group. With members spanning Mad Sin, to Blue Rockin', straight through to Sunny Domestosz, it certainly adds up to an ensemble of the highest calibre. Since their inception in Berlin in 2012 the quartet may have been somewhat sparse in the releases department but sometimes it's quality over quantity. This release marks their third outing after their initial self-titled/self-released EP in 2012 and the 2013 follow-up album The Devil's Music also on Wolverine Records. The lads certainly like to mix things up musically. I suppose that's the way of things when you have such a diverse line up. On this album the boys can go from straight-up psychobilly to neo rockabilly right through to a big dollop of Kings Of Nuthin'-esque rockin' rhythm 'n' blues. Actually on The Shovel you'd be forgiven for thinking it was Torr Skoog and not Hellvis on vocals. But that's where the comparisons end. The Devil 'n' Us are very much their own machine and have carved out a nice little niche within the psychobilly realm with a sound that has a crossover appeal in that it gathers all the sub-genres within it and packs it all nicely into one unit. So if you're not sure what kind of musical mood you're in, listen to this album. It's sure to satiate all tastes. 


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