When I hear the term ‘psychobilly’ I normally switch off within a few seconds as my mind conjures the image of a Cajun campfire somewhere in Louisiana. But when I saw that this album has been put out on HELLCAT my pessimism turned more to curiosity and I realised that they’re cult fan base wouldn’t exist for no reason, so I popped on the disc and was introduced to the eclectic sounds of TIGER ARMY.
When I say eclectic, I mean not so much that there’s a country riff one minute and a metal riff the next but that in a subtle way this album, whilst being essentially tied to the psychobilly genre, throws in a few other influences creating a sound which, to be honest, is pretty unique. There are glimpses of dark 80’s pop ala THE CURE. (‘Rose of the Devil’s Garden’ particularly springs to mind). Whilst something about the vocals remind me distinctly of Davey Havoc in places, but I do believe they’re from the same backyard anyways.
The major fault of this release in my eyes is that the same pace is kept throughout the album and, as a result, towards the end the riffs and sequences seem tired and overused in places. The first two tracks are basically intros before track 3 ‘Wander Alone’ kicks things off properly but things don’t stray too far away from the same formula. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing with this release, as it is pretty much fundamentally unique in its own right.
So while this album has a sound which takes influence from a whole plethora of different styles, its essentially rooted in psychobilly but with a dark, almost gothic feeling twist. But it is also filled to the brim with melody and a typical country sounding twang. Full marks for creating something so diverse without sounding like they’re trying to be different; it’s a very natural sounding release. But as an album itself, it doesn’t really diversify from song to song and the reluctance in changing the status quo where pace is concerned results in tracks going by virtually unnoticed. Not necessarily too much of a bad thing but not really a great feature.
Released on Hellcat
Mike