A bit devilish yet angelic at times, the seventh level of excellence is achieved on Reverend Horton Heat’s album “Lucky 7.”
Jim Heath’s chicken picking opens up the album with “Loco Gringo’s Like to Party.” It’s a comical song about crazy men of the young and old age variance that like to drink and frolic about in trash cans, looking for a good time when they get that crazy Jones about themselves, “Loco Gringo’s like to party and they like it when it burns/ And when they drink tequila they fight for the wooorrrrrmmmm.”
The song breaks down around the minute and a half mark as Heath moonpicks his way into comfortable surroundings.
Scott Churilla keeps pace with standard blues drum pumping as Jimbo Wallace walks away on bass. The song creates an overall back-alley feel.
“Galaxy 500” begins with skip-able picks, compliments of Heath as he begins to break down the separation line with a former loved one. “You take the fish/ I’ll take the bowl/ you take the dishes/ while you’re at it take my sooouuulll.”
At that exact moment, the song is stepped up about six levels of wonder. He bends down his voice as the word “soul” escapes his lips and everything cuts out as he sounds a little depressed, but then that depression escapes and lifts into confidence as he lets out “But things ain’t so bad because I got a Galaxy 500.”
The song really picks up from this point and goes wild turkey into the sky. It turns into a very aggressive number, and Heath has another head shaking guitar solo around the 1:45 second mark of the song.
These songs are both aggressive, yet independent in sound of each other. A very clever song is “The Tiny Voice of Reason.”
It creates images of an old country landscape around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, while the sun is in that golden stage of life. A little girl sits on a swing and sways. A bit neglected she sits with a gun along side. The men try to get her to listen to reason.
But also, it sounds like the girl is a metaphor for that voice of reason. “Everyone ignores the girl in the chair.”
“Duel at the Two O’ Clock Bell” sounds like an old drowsy surf rock song.
It emits wavy sounds and switches rhythm around three minutes with a faster pace, yet still a bit drowsy, the old Devil Two-Step. It returns to the original sound at four minutes. There are a couple of fights that take place in this song and a small bit of make-up towards the end.
A snappy good time is lined up for your ear-holes with a spin of “Lucky 7.”
If you’re into math, you can times that seven by two and get 14, which is how many songs there are on the album.
The trio of Reverend Horton Heat will be in California at the end of December with two dates in Los Angeles and a New Year’s Eve show in San Diego. The show is called “Go with Your Friends,” which is the title of a song on “Lucky 7.”