After making records for over twenty years, Louisiana-based
cowpunk
renegades
Dash Rip Rock
have ventured into territory they've never explored before -- they've made a concept album, albeit one suited to their Dixie-fried tastes. 2007's
Hee Haw Hell
is a 12-song cycle in which a nameless redneck dies in the midst of a wild party (chronicled in
"Fall Down, Go Boom"
) and wanders through Hell's various circles and tributaries, where he encounters sexually crazed women (
"MOAF,"
) an ill-fated
Southern rock
band (
"Southern Rain"
), insane preachers obsessed with kinky sex and pork (
"Chariots of Hellfire,"
which features a perfectly cast cameo from
Mojo Nixon
) and A&R men who took the teeth out of
punk rock
(
"Punk Rock Never Happened"
), among other things. While
is a little short on a consistent narrative, the album's "hillbillies in Hades" theme permeates everything here, and it suits the band's rowdy attitude quite well.
have written a strong batch of songs for this album, which kick hard while bringing the laughs at the right time, and the band (
Bill Davis
on guitar,
Brimstone Broussard
on bass and
Eric De Padua
on drums) is in tight and hard-rocking shape, with plenty of help from the likes of
Bill Lloyd
,
Jello Biafra
(whose
Alternative Tentacles
label brought this out) and members of
the Upper Crust
and
Supagroup
. There's an old saying that if you're gonna go to hell, you may as well go for a reason, and
's vacation in the Land of Fire and Brimstone has helped them bring back a damned fine album:
shows these guys aren't running out of heat anytime soon. ~ Mark Deming