Zeno Tornado and the Boney Google Brothers - S/T (Voodoo Rhythm)
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By the time you finish soaking in the band name, you’ve probably already got this one accurately pegged- Zeno and the boys are Swiss crazies plying trashy bluegrass, moonshine-ridden sickabilly, and primitive, lo-fi rock n’ roll. Now, you may think that swamp-breath hillbilly shitkicker music can only come from the steamy climes of Dixieland USA, and yer probably right. However, the first line of this record is “Before I was sick, I was drunk” and the second line is “Before I was drunk, I was high”, and that’s close enough to an authentic redneck lament for rock and roll, brother. Fueled by an alternately sweet and sour pedal steel guitar and the cardboard thump-thump-thump of a stand-up bass, Mr. Tornado and his Boney Google Brothers (named not after the search engine, I reckon, but after a birth defect, or perhaps the tragic aftermath of a bar fight…or maybe they just got fucked-up eyes) tear into these surprisingly traditional sounding tunes like Aussie-tonk snarldogs the Beasts of Bourbon with a tipsy Slim Whitman up front. “I Love It” is a fiddle-fried hillbilly number that Elvis woulda done, if he didn’t get all mixed up in that rock and roll nonsense. Likewise, “Liver Lover” is “Blue Suede Shoes”, if said shoes were covered in piss and vomit. “Life’s a Pissing Against the Wind” is all banjo pickin’ and pseudo-yodel yelping, “Family Man” starts with “My daddy was a porno star” and sounds exactly like a song with that opening line should, their cover of “Highway Man” is brooding and reverential, and the dramatic death-ballad closer “Rebel” is pure Johnny Cash misery. I know, you probably wanted jokey, but not everything’s a fuckin’ joke, man. Zeno Tornado might be insane and wrong in the head – his mustache certainly suggests as much- but when it comes to country (or “Cunt-ry”, as they the back cover calls it), he’s as dead serious as a hound dog with his snout stuck in a beehive. I dunno if they have back porches in Switzerland or not, but they sure have big brass belt-buckles, and Zeno’s is the biggest and brassiest of ‘em all. Turns out, “Yeehaw” is “Yeehaw” in just about any ‘ol language.
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