Reverend Horton Heat - Rev

Rev is Reverend Horton Heat's eleventh(!) album. It was released in 2014, five years after Laughin' and Cryin'. I was quite nervous about this album, because Laughin' and Cryin' was such a stinker IMHO.

But thankfully Rev sees the band back in fine form. There's nothing here we haven't heard countless times before, and not just generally speaking about rockabilly, but also many of the songs are very similar to songs on previous Reverend Horton Heat albums.

But that is just fine by me. Victory Lap / Smell Of Gasoline is a pretty close copy of Big Sky / Baddest Of The Bad, but this energetic instrumental rockabilly gets me every time. It's a similar familiarity and enjoyment for Spooky Boots, Scenery Going By, Longest Gonest Man and Chasing Rainbows.

Recording quality? Low-fi seems to be a rockabilly badge of pride, and sadly this one also lives up to the reputation. Flaws include a boomy double-bass and a snare sounds that's being belted mercilessly in a shed somewhere. 

Instrumentally, Never Gonna Stop It is pretty generic (still fantastic, though), but the highlight is the wonderfully provocative lyrics about abuse of government privilege:
They can profit off a deal from a patriotic tax
While sitting on the board of Golden Slacks*
Cheat on their wives with a cute intern
History's lesson they'll never learn
 
Charge us a tax to build a road with a toll
But they're never gonna stop it
Rock and Roll

* Goldman Sachs, of course. But the record label probably didn't want to get sued...

The cheeky double-entendre lyrics of Let Me Teach You How To Eat make for a light-hearted yet engaging pop song. Musically, it gets a bit tired towards the end, but the jokes keep things entertaining. Similarly, the narrative of Hardscrabble Woman are a treat. It perfectly tells the tale of a tomboy who fixes her own pick-up truck and picks bar fights. Not to mention the hillbilly instrumentals, which add a nice bit of variety to the album.

Favourite songs

Victory Lap, Smell Of Gasoline, Never Gonna Stop It, Spooky Boots, Scenery Going By, Let Me Teach You How To Eat, Longest Gonest Man, Hardscrabble Woman, Chasing Rainbows

I diggit?

Strangely, yes. Often when a band churns an album that doesn't cover any new ground, I find myself preferring to just stick to the original. But somehow with Reverend Horton Heat, I'm always keen for more of the same psychobilly goodness.