I don’t believe it’s any secret that I work with publicists when
\nit comes to getting new groups reviewed on “The Daily Vault”.
\nOften, these discs come generally unsolicited, meaning I have a
\nwonderful field of dreams to wade through each week (as well as the
\noccasional landmine).<\/p>\n
I got talking with the publicist for Mulehead, an Arkansas-based
\nfour piece whose blend of honky-tonk raucous rock is similar to a
\nfew groups on the market today. As he was describing the band in an
\neffort to get me to listen to the disc, he mentioned the way they
\nmix humor with their music. Ah, I said, kind of like The Bottle
\nRockets, eh?<\/p>\n
Well, sorry, Mark, but the level of humor that Kevin Kerby and
\ncrew use never rises to the plateaus set by the Bottle Rockets. I
\nwill say this much about Mulehead’s sophomore release
\nThe Gospel Accordion II<\/i>: it’s a great record to get absorbed
\nin.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist\/guitarist Kirby, guitarist\/vocalist Dave
\nRaymond, bassist\/multi-instrumentalist Brent Labeau and drummer
\nGeoff Curran – does sound like a bastard child of Southern rock,
\ncreating a glorious noise that reflects a refreshing attack on
\nmusic so desparately missed these days. This is not your father’s
\nMarshall Tucker Band – and that, I’m sure, suits Mulehead just
\nfine, thank you very much.<\/p>\n
Some of the finer moments on
\nThe Gospel Accordion II<\/i> you can almost predict from the
\ntrack listing on the CD. “Busted” is a surprisingly powerful track
\nthat shows the reality of life in hard times in contrast with the
\ndreams one once had. “Get Thee Behind Me Satan” is a rollicking
\ngood time that dares to flip off the Evil One himself (gee, and I
\nthought Prince would never find work again); try and not laugh at
\nsome of the things Kirby and crew come up with on this one.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that each song is a hit. “When The Dope Ran
\nOut (So Did She)” sounds on paper like it could be a track worthy
\nof Jimmy Buffett, but too much repetition and musical wandering do
\nthis song in far before its prime. Likewise, “Glad To Be Here” just
\nnever seems to get off the ground, and is a relative
\ndisappointment.<\/p>\n
Then there are the tracks that catch your ear from left field.
\nSongs like “Out Here In The Pines,” “Lullaby For Catfish” and “Dig
\nMy Grave” all are killer tracks that you’ll find yourself going
\nback to time and time again, while “Ozark” is a pretty (albeit too
\nshort) instrumental piece that finds Mulehead getting to the core
\nof their sound.<\/p>\n
I’ve made comparisons between Mulehead and the Bottle Rockets
\nearlier; but the only thing that these two bands share is their
\nroots in country-rock. Mulehead proves that they are very much
\ntheir own band, and deserve to be taken on their own merits – of
\nwhich there are many.<\/p>\n
Mulehead is a band you might never have heard of, and
\nThe Gospel Accordion II<\/i> is not the kind of album you’d
\nquickly find on the shelves at Borders. But both the band and the
\nalbum are well worth searching out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7580],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39401","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mulehead","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39401"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39401"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}