Go to Blazes

June 20 - June 27, 1 9 9 6
[Off the Record]

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** Go to Blazes

WAITING AROUND FOR THE CRASH

(East Side Digital)

From the same Minnesota indie that brought us Missouri's wonderful Bottle Rockets comes a more purified dose of '70s-style Southern rock, this time from down-home Philadelphia. Regardless of their Northeastern roots, their fifth album proves they can head back to the country as well as any H.O.R.D.E. band or Uncle Tupelo/Jayhawks spinoff. They've got drawling vocals flanked by dueling guitars, touches of fiddle and mandolin in the background, and a drummer who knows how to boogie in syncopation with the tambourine.

Opening up with a strong drinking song, they could have gone all the way if they'd stuck to playing redneck losers. Instead, they're so doggedly derivative, they end up slipping into the same old macho bluster that made so much Southern rock such a drag. Couple the likes of "She's always changing/Like women do" with their flashes of art-rock pretension and it's enough to bring back repressed memories of that Molly Hatchet concert.

-- Franklin Soults