I have a deep connection to this band. They were my first concert in 2001 and singer\/songwriter Tom Maxwell was one of the first musicians I ever interviewed. Not to mention, \u201cHell\u201d is still a great song all these years later. Nowadays, Squirrel Nut Zippers is now comprised by singer\/songwriter\/guitarist Jim Mathus and a completely different lineup than the musicians that made hits like \u201cHell.\u201d Instrumentalists\/singers Maxwell, Ken Mosher and Katharine Whalen are nowhere to be found, and this record is severely lacking as a result. I tried to like it, but it just feels like an utter sham now. This band should not be considered in the same league as the original Zippers. It feels more like Mathus continuing his oddball solo career and trying to sully the Zippers\u2019 classic heritage.<\/p>\n
The first single \u201cKarnival Joe (From Kokomo)\u201d begins feeling like an early band B-side with lots of horns and banjos, but then the shrill voice of the band\u2019s newest female singer comes in and sounds like your mom interrupting your kegger; it\u2019s akin to a needle skipping across a record. Katharine Whalen was a Billie Holiday sort of vocalist. In contrast, I don\u2019t know how the hell you would describe this one, other than terrible. It just ruins the track completely. <\/p>\n
The title cut isn\u2019t bad and has a weird vibe that I liked, but then there\u2019s a song like \u201cHey Shango!\u201d where the band tries to go African and it falls flat on its face. This isn\u2019t the band I liked as a kid; this is a musician trying to hold on for his artistic life and failing badly in the process.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what the hell \u201cRusty Trombone\u201d is but it\u2019s awful, just awful. When the new female singer emerges on \u201cUse What Mama Gave You\u201d and \u201cFade,\u201d you really wish for Ms. Whalen and her dynamism. Man, this \u2018band\u2019 is just trying to swim in the leftovers of what the Zippers reinvented in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the only thing that really needs to be said about this record is this: When your record has three instrumentalists and you\u2019re not a prog metal band, then it\u2019s time to throw in the towel once and for all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":33450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6381],"rating":[5620],"class_list":["post-45268","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-squirrel-nut-zippers","rating-rating-f"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45268","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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45268"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45268"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}