Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Shanty Town, 17 Oct 2008
I was once press ganged by a grizzled old tar by the name of McGill. For 10 long years he work me til sweat had me beat and the bones in my fingers were raw, in the raging gales round the Cape of Good Hope with an illicit cargo of rum, scurveyed and ricketted until I could take no more and walked the plank to life in of Bohemian excess. In a cave. In Mexico.
Like this did it sound.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Boys, Tarantino's Coming For You Soon, 15 Jan 2009
Starting with frenetic Mariachi trumpets, which give way to a yelping vocal, the album immediately recalls a massively more energetic and celebratory Beirut, or the alt.country sound of Wovenhand. The opening tracks are also equally reminiscent in bass and vocal of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon", the track re-popularized by Urge Overkill on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, and in fairness the opening tracks recall that cover more than they do Mr. Diamond. Soundtrack influence seems to feature highly, and debt must surely be due in part to Ennio Morricone's back catalogue.
There are plenty more influences in here too, from jittery skiffle, to psycho-billy echoes and reverb, such as can be found on the shout-along "I Can't Help Myself", which starts in mad-cap fashion, such as The Coral used to, before quickly devolving into a darker vein. The album has a slower middle-section and slower-still finish, which is only punctuated by this track, which further recalls fledgling act Maybe Myrtle Turtle in its wide-eyed abandon. The slow finish, which in truth is closet indie, albeit quietly soaring, finishes with a refined whimper in the hidden track, which returns to the alt. country template with what sounds like a banjo.
`Shoot You Down' is from this middle-section and is led by Catherine Turner as an altogether more restrained affair, which brings to mind, say, Nancy Sinatra if you want to continue with the Tarantino soundtrack influences. Alt.country star Jenny Lewis could be a satisfactory contemporary comparison. Turner's counterpart also turns in a decent Nick Cave sound from time to time.
This is an inventively noir sound and wholly enjoyable, just that a couple of later tracks are a little dusty in comparison to the early whirlwinds.
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