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"The No. 6 Dance" Five Horse Johnson |
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Don't quite get the opening Intro here… "So what part of Ohio are you from then?" "Toledo, sir…" and then straight into the "Mississippi King" track… man, if you thought it was hard to spell it back in grade school, it don't get any easier today. Nice tune though, throwin' down a little of the old Southwestern groove, ala double-Z, gator-county's Molly Hatchet boys, typically sunbelt, sunburned, a little of the boogie-woogie set to heavy chunks of the primal power chord variety… Now we're not gonna get on this Southern Rock kick where it's usually plausible to consider every one of those types as either Skynyrd, ZZ, or Allman retreads, with these guys-yeah they got the name for it, they got their boots a little muddy but overall this is pretty heavy duty-The Molly Hatchet derivative makes the most sense, thrown in with a little of the old Leslie West and a brief appearance by the Robinson brothers. You know every so often a group comes out, got a catchy but indeterminable title, off the wall cover art and some strangely alluring illustrative concepts and the music could just suck for all you care, you've gotta see what this is about. Five Horse Johnson in fact
doesn't suck, they hit the mark more often than not with their safety
assured lazy style of heavy-handed rebel Rock raging slab and tire tracks
across Content's pretty strong, ranging
from early seventies' Hard Rock with "Shine Around" being
the one that comes to mind immediately and the first major contribution
of an organ and Doobie Brothers chorus… yes, there's quite a lot
going on here having more to "It Ain't Easy" rings familiar of those big jam band epics from the day while at the same time you're thinking of Jackyl. These dudes have already shared
the stage with some big time names-Johnny Winter, I'm still trying to figure out how they pulled off the gig with Cheap Trick or Deep Purple… hmm, very unusual. "Lollipop," and "Swallow The World" are two of the album's best nearing the end where in my opinion the latter should've closed the doors since "Buzzard Luck" is just a little too much wheat in the whisky for my tastes and "Odella" is a heavily fed slow torture that's capped off many an album of this nature and slagged its many brethren that came before. Overall I say buy the record for the pictures, the cool name which I figure must have something to do with some variation of poker, a cattle rustler, or the corner saloon where the good folks shown on the back are having a grand ole time… and the music's not bad either. Released by Small Stone Records Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu] |