The Gin Palace Jesters "Roadhouse Riot & Other Songs With Words" (Independent, 2007)

Honkytonk traditionalists with post-modern tendencies

Too often when you're confronted with a picture of a band in matching uniforms, you fear the work of over-earnest revivalists with nothing new to offer. However, taken in tandem with the album title, it's already clear that the Gin Palace Jesters season their honkytonk with a hint of irony. Such an attitude is certainly evident in the music, sometimes threatening to overwhelm it. The title track, for example, veers too close to parody, a problem exacerbated by the addition of a faux bar-room atmosphere to the background. It didn't work for Gram Parsons on 'Cash On the Barrelhead' and it isn't going to work here.

For the most part, however, primary songwriter Dave Sisson is skilled enough to sustain your patience through the occasional affectation. He has knack for writing vintage honkytonk and western swing with an aphoristic lyrical sensibility, ably communicating the heartbreak and loss in which such songs trade. It's a talent best evinced on opener, 'Losing Her Memory' and the wonderfully acute 'Too Sad to Stay (& Much Too Scared to Leave).' Meanwhile, 'Down Beneath the Willows' is a haunting minor key waltz more than fit to join the pantheon of Appalachian death songs.

Sisson's voice is sufficiently resonant to carry the material, although it perhaps lacks any truly distinctive quality, whilst he is backed throughout by exemplary musicianship, particularly from Gabriel Stutz on pedal steel and Katie Schadegg on fiddle. The sound can occasionally feel too clean but this does not too severely compromise the atmosphere of the album. On the whole, it's a collection which captures all the warmth and grit you'd expect from an authentic honkytonk band, augmenting it with enough knowing iconoclasm to keep the formula fresh.

Date review added:  Friday, February 29, 2008
Reviewer:  Kai Roberts
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  Official site