Believe

Fittingly, Believe begins with a train whistle blast and then proceeds to pick up steam, threatening to jump its rails at every bend. Opening with “Agony Wagon,” with its sharp Bayou-by-way-of-the-Balkans violin and accordion, the album proves more varied musically than their debut release,  Cockadoodledon’t, but every bit as energetic and wild. This rollicking, razor-sharp band delivers real-deal rockabilly rave-ups packed with swampy harmonica and scorching, heavy-reverb guitar that lends the sound a sinister edge. Lead singer, harmonica player, and self-proclaimed “jumpin’ jimdandy” Colonel J.D. Wilkes proclaims in “Bible Cyst” that when he dies he wants to "come back as a poltergeist." And true to this vision, he often runs his voice through a range of distortion and echo effects that make him sound like some kind of a demon. This is supercharged music made for a greasy hillbilly dive, with repeated references to sin and temptation, renegade Pentecostal preachers, and the relative merits of salvation versus the unrelenting pursuit of the backwoods boogie.