Smooth And The Bully Boys "Old School Rebel"

(Smooth And The Bully Boys 2014)

Old Time Gone
Old School Rebel
Hu Hu Hu
At The Beginning
If It's You
Did You See My Cat
Devil Dices
I'll Be Rocking
This Train
Rockabilly Baby
Addict
Voodoo Kitchen

Rockabilly is a real bone of contention with me. It was my first love musically and led me on my merry way to psychobilly. I preferred psychobilly because it was wilder and had no rule book. I still love my rockabilly but a lot of it tries too hard to be "authentic". Bands strive to recreate that 50s sound which more often than not just ends up sounding like some shite demo tape with no energy. It even ends up sounding more like safe western swing than the raw wildness that was 1950s rockabilly...the original punk rock. Rockabilly in my opinion is a not a museum piece; it's a contemporary musical genre. It's the unimaginative bands that let it down with their churning out of the standard fare and lyrics that are so samey it's hard to distinguish one rockabilly song from the next. There's just fuck all variation. Jaysus you'd think after 60 years of the genre being around someone would inject some much needed adrenalin in to it. Enter our heroes: Belgium's finest Smooth And The Bully Boys. They take that vintage rule book and wipe their arses with it. They play that ballsy blend of rockabilly that slaps along with enough power and pace to appeal to both the rockabilly and psychobilly subcultures in equal measure. Unlike some of their psychobilly counterparts though, lead vox-man Michel can actually sing..and I mean sing! He has a great voice. The kind of voice I love with its whisky soaked/tobacco burnt tones. There's a lot of diversity on this album; be it slap bass heavy rockabilly, blues, straight up rock'n'roll or dark ballads, and his voice is perfectly suited to all. Purists mightn't like this album but I don't like purists so fuck em. Just when I was starting to lose faith in rockabilly, Smooth And The Bully Boys have churned out an album that has me born again!

The O'Prez

 

Sick Sick Sinners "Unfuckinstoppable"

(Crazy Love Records 2014)

 

Coffee Freak

Where Is My Baby Girl

3 Demons At My Door

Six Feet Underground

Wild Party In Hell

Same Breed

We Wanna Drink Some More

Unfuckinstoppable

Bacon Seed

Wasted Every Day

 

Fuck me pink...purple if you're able, but this is a ten track blitz on the aural senses. Vlad and the lads certainly have the pedal to the floor. Actually, if psychobilly was a souped-up engine I'd imagine it'd sound like this. Slap bass fans rejoice because the sound captured here of said instrument-o-orgasms shall send pulsations of pleasure up and down your own instrument-o-orgasms. Both drums and bass are recorded at the perfect level with lashings of clarity. The guitar is crunchy and powerful...rock but not quite metal. The vocals? Well, as you know by now if you read my musings I'm not a fan of the auld horror theatrics in the vox department but that's not the case with every band. Vlad being one of the few exceptions to that rule. Actually his vocal styling add to the whole sonic aggression of the album. The boys aren't just speed merchants though. They're craftsmen. They've put together some ditties here that you just want to go back and hear again. I love the production on this album. It's pretty much perfect. Now to go get my brand new box of tissues and listen to it all over again.

The O'Prez

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The Squidbillys "Scram!"

(Crazy Love Records 2014)

Intro

Born To Love One Woman

CowEvil

Feeling

Midnight Walk

Metro

Revenge Of Lloyd Kaufman

NoName Song

Keeping on-trend with the current apparent love for that old-school psychobilly sound are Russian trio The Squidbillys. It's the classic line-up of guitar, slap bass and drums with the guitar having that surf styled reverb sound. Speaking of reverb (and treble, which I wasn't but I am now), I would have preferred a little less reverb and treble in the overall mix. That's only a minor caveat in the greater scheme of things though as I do love echo-laden vocals and rockabilly-styled hiccups in my psychobilly which the boys supply. Thanks boys. Anyway, psychobilly by its very defintion is a derivative of rockabilly which can often be forgotten as the genre progresses through the years but The Squidbillys have definite rockabilly inclinations. They play psychobilly the way it was first intended to sound; rockabilly with lunatic tendencies and no sugar coating for the masses. As debut releases go it's good but I think with a bit more fine tuning in the studio they could be great.

The O'Prez

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The Goddamn Gallows "The Maker"

(Crazy Love Records 2014)

The Maker

What Was The High?

Load Yer Guns

Save Yourself

I Am Still The King

Cold And Deep

Demon In The Night

Ol' Dusty Trail

Ragtime Sinner

Copper King

Howlin' Wind

Outta The Cold

16 Monty

The Goddamn Gallows...the genre-defying quintet (even though they call themselves "gutterbilly") are back with their brand new album (released on Farmageddon Records in the US of A and on Crazy Love Records for us European connoisseurs of bad taste), and fuck me, it's a psycho-hoedown of preponderant proportions. It's like a soundtrack to every film you've seen featuring deviant hillbillies, be they inbred or not, that want to cause you some kind of ruination, be it anally or not! Now don't get me wrong, they're not singing about taking you up the arse with cheers of glee..they just sound like a right evil bunch of bastards that you wouldn't want to meet while hanging your y-fronts on the clothes line somewhere in the Appalachian mountains. If 16 Horsepower could be classed as bluegrass then these boys are 100% blackgrass. It's all upbeat good-time sounds with predominant banjo throughout with a solid slap bass and drums backbeat but the whole thing has some very dark undertones. Menacing is the word I'm looking for...and they look every bit as menacing as they sound. There's all sorts of stuff going on sonically on this album (fiddles, mandolins, accordions...) which make The Goddamn Gallows sound more like a gypsy rabble than an actual band (and I mean that in a good way). Another quality release from the ever evolving Gallows.

The O'Prez

The Goddamn Gallows Offical

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Mental Bait "These Killing Nights"

(Crazy Love Records 2014)

Intro

Cult Of Guns

Strange Green Light

The Land Of Nod

8-Ball Rolling

Bitch From Hell

Surfin' With Azathoth

Emptiness

The Land Of Nod Pt.2

Last Resort For Kaptin Chainsaw

Mad At You

Strangler Of Minsk

Svisloch Mermaids

Well then...these boys from Belarus certainly put the psycho in psychobilly and no mistake. Full of aggressive violent energy throughout, but that doesn't mean it's just a 100mph discordant racket. Au contraire! (Yeah that's right...I'm multilingual). This is melodious stuff but with a raw beat and vocal styling that make it sound tough. Speaking of vocal styling...whether I like a band or not all boils down to the vocalist. When the vocals kick in it can make or break a band. The lead vocalist with this band (Doc Orkenstein) makes the band! There. I've said it. The backing vocals on here are great as well. The combination of both lend somewhat of an anthemic feel to some of the songs. The boys are on the harder side of psychobilly. It's kind of reminiscent of the sound that evolved around the 90s from the likes of Gorilla or the Godless Wicked Creeps or indeed the sounds to be sampled on Crazy Love's "It Came From Hell" series of compilations. Standout songs for me are Strange Green Light, Bitch From Hell and The Land Of Nod Pt.2. My only minor criticism is that the booklet didn't come with lyrics included BUT you can go to the Mental Bait Bandcamp page and view them there...and download the album (if that's your thing, it's not mine; I prefer the physical thing in my hand...ooooh matron!). Anyway, this isn't music to woo your girlfriend with, it's music to pummel the shite out of someone in the wrecking pit with. This pleases me!

The O'Prez

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Dead - The Soundtrack (featuring Sparky Phillips)

(Crazy Love Records 2014)

Something a bit different this time around. Crazy Love Records have released the soundtrack to Sven Halfar's pulp flick Dead. The music on here is by Nils Kacirek And The Peng Peng Pony. It's best described as a cacophonic and surrealistic Ennio Morricone crossed with Ry Cooder sound throughout with some horns here and there giving off a bit of a Squirrel Nut Zippers kind of vibe. All instrumentals (except the ones I'm getting to in the next paragraph) and the majority of them are quite short. Well, it is a soundtrack album.

BUT...four of the ditties on here feature Demented Are Go's Mark "Sparky" Phillips on vocals. That right there is the selling point of the album for the psychobilly completest brigade. If you liked Sparky's collaboration with The Hillbilly Moon Explosion then you'll love these songs. They're very much of the same ilk but with an even darker feel and also feature some duetting with female vocals (Dorte Benzner). Some of the best material I've heard from our Sparkles to date. Demented Are Go fans should definitely add this to their collection.

The O'Prez

Degenerated "Aargh!"

(Crazy Love Records 2014)

Revenge Of The Hypnotoad

Ship Of Fools

Run Away

Take This Trip

Swamp Thing

Zombified Society

Never Again

Vampire Girl

Rock The Bong

Paranoia

Stompin' Shoes

Go My Way

Illusions

Psychobilly. The multifaceted bastardisation of rockabilly, punk, garage and whatever else you want to throw in to the mix for good measure. Born in the UK but nurtured and kept alive in mainland Europe with Germany being the big breasted lactating mother. So that very same German mother...or indeed Germammy has given birth to triplets in the form of Degenerated. Featuring Max, Sexy and Madman (of Psychobilly Online fame), the trio have released their début album and it's aurally and visually straight from 1984...not the book...the year...and what a fine vintage 1984 was too. I didn't like the album at all when I heard it first, second or even third time. It's like many phalluses (so I've been told) that fall under the "grower not a shower" category. Basically, if you take the four albums from Anagram's old Blood On The Cats series and stick the musical delights within those vinyl platters in to a blender then this album is the tasty result. Psychobilly has moved on and changed a lot over the years which is sometimes a good thing but more often than not the roots of the whole thing get completely lost in an overgrown punk with a double bass weed-filled garden. Degenerated are like a big bottle of weed killer.

The O'Prez

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