Outlaw [CD]

Alabama 3 are a unique and entertaining band and with their 5th album they continue to be so.This album is more country than their last efforts but still retains the alabama stamp of beats and entertaining D Wayne and Larry Love interplay.For anyone who likes this band this is essential, if you want to take a risk with something new and not the current bland guitar bands then you could do worse than this. Enjoy (they are a top live band as well)

Another brilliant album from the Alabama 3.

Larry's vocals sound fantastic. There's less of a techno edge to this one, but it's still very catchy with some classic riffs on a country-theme.

Stand out tracks (for me):

* Last Train to Mashville - you WILL sing-a-long

* Up Above My Head - builds steadily to an arm waving finale

* Have You Seen Bruce Richard Reynolds - real story telling through music and you've gotta love that twang (and the BRR rap)

* Honey in the Rock - sexy, bluesy vibe

* How can I Protect You - love the sample

I've never found anyone who doesn't like the Alabama 3 once introduced to their unique sound. And they are my never bettered benchmark of a live performance.

My ex used to say that this band were a novelty, a joke band like that idiotic Crazy Frog, simply because they had a sense of humour.and weren't afraid to use it. Needless to say, she was wrong. Alabama 3 aren't a joke band, but they're a band that see the joke in life. Life is by it's very nature a ridiculous construct. In some respects we shouldn't even be listening to music, but out there chasing dinner and hunting things with spears. Come here, Bambi, you look tasty.

Like normal, Alabama 3 are an obscure mish-mash of a wide variety of influences -and. "Outlaw", their fourth album, refuses to mess with their so far magic (but commercially unsuccessful) formula, and offers a further twelve platters of country western blues gospel techno communist propoganda. The overt political themes of earlier albums have been submerged under what some call "The Romance Of Crime". The Outlaw hangs heavy over this album, the lone maverick who always goes his own way irrespective of the law.

"Outlaw" isn't going to win many new converts, nor lose the Alabama's any members of their congregation. The bands formula has tempered slightly, in so much as the previous occasional forays into faster stuff has smoothed into what could be seen as a generally homogenous collection : which is not to say that isn't part of the charm. It sounds like a greatest hits collection given the number of melodies and hooks, but it isn't. It takes a cavalier attitude to the musical ghettos many of us place around ourselves, and offers a wonderfully modern, ultimately flippant take upon the world by casting us all as renegade dance cowboys on the last train, glory bound to drug-soaked oblivion, death, glory, salvation, or all three.

Particularly of note are "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" a hymn to the redemptive power of the Man In Black that is, so far, the most eloquent tribute to the departed desperado. The rest of the suspects in the lineup are equally worthy, with "Last Train To Mashville" (mysteriously absent from the album of the same name), and "Up Above My Head" being particular standouts. No Nonsense Groovebound, White Boy, South Brixton, Country & Western Blues Acid House Techno. All Aboard!