J. Roddy Waltson & The Business

J Roddy Walston and the Business
J Roddy Walston and the Business
Reviewed 3/15/11

Unrepentantly old-fashioned rock, at the intersection of blues and country. (The intersection was well-trod for a while in the early '70s, with Leon Russell/Rolling Stones types.) This album pretends that 1971 never stopped happening-- it's reactionary, but well-executed, and at its best, intensely hooky.

Every song consists, as a rule, of the song title sung over and over again, over similar woozy guitars and plinky piano-- it's low-key and sloppy and stupid, but in the best way-- it lives and dies by its hooks, and on about a third of the tracks, they strike gold.

PLAY: Tracks 1 and 2. Fantastic. The rest doesn't reach the heights of these two tracks, but it delivers what it promises. (No FCCs detected on any tracks, though its all so sloppy and slurry, .)

1. **** Affable Fats Domino-piano boogie turns into drum-heavy blues rocker. Singing morphs into laughing... GREAT hooks. (2:48)
2. **** Gospel backing, swaying. Starts out heavily, with bridges of delicate piano. Like #1, amazingly catchy. (4:04)
3. A little grating. Blues rock on fumes-- avoid. (3:58)
4. Off-the-cuff drunky singalong. Not much to it. (3:38)
5. * Bass-heavy, meandering, with a satisfying bridge... gains momentum. (5:21)
6. Screechy, a little bit of '80s gloss sneaks in. (2:29)
7. * Drum-heavy, with "woah woah" chorus. Kind of a perfect song, in a braindead, stripped-down way. (4:23)
8. Pipey falsetto screeching bar band singing. (3:22)
9. * Slow piano honky-tonk ballad, gets rocking as it goes, gets pretty demented and over-the-top. (4:01)
10. Real sludgy swamp guitar, slow stomper. ("God damn" isn't an FCC, right?) (3:39)

-Hervey Okkles