Cardboard Cowboy: Unload Your Head
Punkabilly Pop Rock gunslingers swagger through ten fat tracks of rhinestone.
Allegedly.
Here's the finished final debut album from Cardboard Cowboy in its Sunday Best Hat and Spurs. It looks great, it tells a good story, it seems legit. But what's the truth? Ant Pearson, Pat Moore, Mark Walmsley and Dave James have seen the Wanted Posters and they wear the Haunted Faces. Your reviewer has the Evidence.
Fact One. Issued by Slapdash Records in July 2004, after nearly three years of gestation and paturition from the womb of Zebraindustries.
Fact Two. Award Winning Logo (see above).
Fact Three. These guys wear Good Hats. (see inlay booklet)
Fact Four. "If It Don't Feel Like Rock And Roll" has an impeccable harmonica/lead guitar duet followed at 3 minutes 46 by the greatest repeat guitar phrase played by anyone this year, anywhere.
Fact Five. "The Rise and Fall of Ricky Rollercoaster" is a title which implies "Rock and Roll".
Fact Six. It also has some totally oh yes guitar bits and morphs Elvis Costello into someone else that I don't know the name of but it doesn't matter.
Fact Seven. And it tested positive for addictive content.
Fact Eight. Every time you think of some predecessor DNA (Talking Heads, Crowded House, The Pogues, Eels, Wilko .) another one arrives and you forget the first one.
Fact Nine. Which makes it individual and eclectic.
Fact Ten. "The Seven Year Bitch" is a killer title.
Fact Eleven. It's like a Cowboy Song with a great saloon piano part and appears at Track Seven.
Fact Twelve. Mojo Magazine said "perky popsters from Leeds have made a uniquely fine album of great songs" in a dream I had last night.
Fact Thirteen. That's enough facts.
GO and buy the bloody thing. OR download bits off the internet first if you're a GREENHORN WIMP and daren't do anything impulsive without checking first. They have a website. Track ten "Revolution" is my favourite right now. It's the one playing as I type. The bass line echoes that repeat bit from "If it Don't Feel ... " which is Thematically Astute. And the guitars whang out like leather belts in the sunshine at the end. Wooah!
Find related articles: mark walmsley, mojo magazine, debut album from, guitar duet, wanted posters.
