"Big Dwarf Rodeo": Reverend Horton Heat: Reading: Spend A Night In The Box Review

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Spend A Night In The Box
Album Review witten by Ron Hart
CMJ New Music Monthly

The good Reverend and his backwoods rock 'n' roll ministry band have been soaring to the highest altitudes of the CMJ Radio 200 for nearly a decade, offering salvation in a mix of punked-up surf, rockabilly and trucker twang. Judging by the attitudinal fortitude displayed on the Texas trio's Time Bomb debut, the band will continue to reign as chart-topping college radio mainstays. Spend A Night In The Box, which was recorded at Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studios in Austin with Butthole Surfers bassist Paul Leary behind the boards, is a skillfully choreographed saloon rumble of an album that marks the group's return to its classic, amped-up, rockabilly style. Frontman Jim Heath, The Rev himself, proves why he's one of the best guitarists in rock today with his Carl Perkins vs. Wayne Kramer fret work on "Sue Jack Daniels" and "I'll Make Love." Jimbo Wallace never made his bass thunder like he does on the jammin' closer "Party In Your Head." The band even tries their hand at a Johnny Cash-style galloping rhythm on "The Bedroom Again," and a '60s go-go groove on "Whole Lotta Baby." Spend A Night In The Box is one helluva shot of redemptive moonshine.