Alabama 3: La Peste

La-Peste is one of those albums that grabs you by goolies on the very first track, by the second track a firm grasp has been established and is not relinquished until the dire cover of Don Henley and Glen Frey’s "Hotel California" three quarters of the way through the album. For those of you not familiar with Alabama 3 they look and sound like a renegade posse of AWOL cowboys with a rapidly dwindling stash. I was therefore most surprised to discover that they actually hail from Brixton, London. The style of music is quite hard to categorize but the best description I have heard is "Acid Country". The album opens with the single "Too Sick To Pray" which starts with a weird electronic sound effect followed by a lone steel guitar before slowly building up to a towering wall of bass, drums and throaty Nick Cave/Iggy pop style vocals. Other notable tracks include "Walking in my sleep" which starts of with sermon by a preacher from the Deep South before moving into a slow dance beat and some vocal styles and lyrics that must have be inspired by Dr John. "Cocaine (killed my Community)" has a prominent drum loop and keyboards with a distinct "Talking Heads" feel to it. For those of you following the US TV Drama, "The Soprano’s", I am reliable informed that Alabama 3 provide the music, which has gone someway to increase their somewhat low profile. Although perhaps one of the most amazing coincidences is that the band members "Larry Love", "D. Wayne Love", "The Mountain of Love" and "Sir Real Love" all share the same surname, but are not actually related; what are the chances of that. Certainly a bit different from most of the other stuff around at the moment, and well worth the experiment.

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