One of these days I’ll learn to read the blurb that comes with these things before I listen to them.
Take Black Tarpoon. There’s only three songs on “The Thad” so I’ve got my references ready. There’s a joke about Ted Nugent and what he’d make of the name, there’s a bit about Jason And The Scorchers, there’s one or two passing things about Eddie Spaghetti of Superseekers being the scariest bloke I’ve ever met (and believe me, he really was).
Then I read the press release and it says this: “A family band hailing from Corpus Christi, Texas,” hang on, what? A family band? Good god almighty, The Walton’s this ain’t.
Put it this way, if these boys and girls ever said “goodnight John Boy” they are sleeping with one eye open.
The band have two lead singers, Jesse James (acoustic guitar/lead vocals) and Oatmeal Reed (bass/dirty vocal). I hope to the great God of Lemmy that Oatmeal is his real name, too. And there’s a whole mess of other family members – it’s complicated.
More complicated, actually, than the music itself. The music itself, is actually pretty much as I described it. On one hand that’s the kind of cowpunk that Jason goes scorching past to, with Superbuggy 666 in the passenger seat. “Sarita” in fairness is bleak but fun at the same time.
“Gloom”, takes the bleakness of the love gone wrong of the first one, and moves it up a notch. “I barely have the strength to play these songs you burned your bridges to,” offers the lyric, in a kind of matter of fact way, but if the rage is simmering on the first two, it explodes on the third.
“He Sleeps With The Fishes” is what The Misfits would sound like if they played country. It’s that simple. The girl (I assume it’s the same one, and therefore “The Thad” is a kind of concept album) has moved on. Black Tarpoon haven’t. Not a bit, and they are– and I quote – “itching to take the life of another man”.
Murder ballad? Nah man, this is rock n roll. Texas style. There ain’t been a family band like this since the Manson’s and Black Tarpoon rule. It’s “thad” simple.
Rating 8/10
