Comanchero call themselves pioneers of \u201ccactus rock,\u201d a curious but accurate stage name for their own blend of Americana and Southern country rock.\u00a0 Based somewhat unexpectedly from Boston, MA, Comanchero earned a solid slot within the jam band musicscape with their third album, The Undeserved<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Even for those who have never previously encountered a Comanchero composition, most tracks on The Undeserved<\/i> will still strike the listener with familiarity time and again.\u00a0 This phenomenon stems from its ability to borrow and blend influences from multiple genres:\u00a0 Allman Brothers-esque Southern rock, Americana \u00e0 la Wilco, and even sprinkles of ska and funk here and there.\u00a0 The beauty of the album, however, is that it accomplishes all of this in a genuine, non-pretentious manner; you never feel like the album is overreaching unnecessarily to cover territory that it shouldn’t.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cJimmy Carter\u201d is a great example of a song that you would swear you’ve heard before, but you surely haven’t.\u00a0 Right away, catchy, upbeat hooks featuring vocal harmonies reel in the listener and refuse to let go.\u00a0 These harmonies dominate the majority of the album and compliment the equally complex and textured instrumentation throughout.\u00a0 By contrast, \u201cOne Foot In The Grave\u201d starts modestly with a single strumming guitar, but it quickly blossoms into an upbeat, old school country song that would make Waylon Jennings proud, complete with a train-mimicking rhythm and perfectly placed fiddle accents.\u00a0 Comanchero then mutates yet again with \u201cFall In Line, which adopts chill, ska-influenced rhythms to create a lightly funky atmosphere.<\/p>\n
A pair of ballads devoted to alcohol composes the apex of the album.\u00a0 \u201cThe Other Side Of Town\u201d is an oddity that opens as you might expect, with the lyrics recounting the recent events of a man down on his luck, followed by a clumsy but undeniably catchy hook as the band proclaims, \u201cOn the other side of town \/ Big, pink elephants dance around \/ When you’re drinkin’ on the other side of town.\u201d\u00a0 The song then stumbles into a jazzy, farcical jam with cameos from clarinets, trombones, and even a slide whistle.<\/p>\n
Next, \u201cWhiskey\u201d opens with a blues rock motif and a harmonica that’s starved for attention, much like an old Blues Traveler song.\u00a0 It then evolves into a ridiculously catchy chorus highlighted again by those same raucous vocal harmonies, ruing the unwanted results of excessive amounts of the song’s namesake: \u201cIn the morning, I see the truth \/ It’s a losing proposition to blow your mind out on the hooch.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a stellar start, The Undeserved<\/i> languishes a bit near the bottom half of the album.\u00a0 Weaker tracks like quirky closer \u201cUndeserved\u201d and \u201cHard To Breathe,\u201d which grinds through a repetitive and hypnotizing chorus, hamper the album’s upbeat pace.\u00a0 \u201cRed\u201d grows on you, though, as it juggles somber-toned interludes with that same uber-catchy harmony-heavy chorus so prominently scattered through the rest of the album.<\/p>\n
On the whole, though, Comanchero mostly strikes gold with The Undeserved<\/i>, jumping from one genre to the next, keeping fresh, foot-stomping material flowing through your speakers for a good, long while.\u00a0 I’m still not 100% sure what \u201ccactus rock\u201d means, but I’m convinced I’d like to hear more of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":30871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8795],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42548","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-comanchero","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42548","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\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42548"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}