Waco Brothers: Electric Waco Chair

Who knew that The Mekons' mid-'80s incorporation of country influences would prove an important model for other punk-gone-country groups like Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo Who knew, when Mekon Jon Langford launched Waco Brothers in the mid-'90s, that the group would evolve into more than a side project and still be going strong years later The Wacos' fifth album finds the group in fine form and sounding more like a real band than ever. There's no scraping the Welsh punk away from Langford's voice, but even if this weren't true, his Waco work never makes it possible to forget his origins. Lines such as, "History is written by the winners / this is a loser's song" capture underclass resentment whether set to fierce three-chord punk or, as on Electric Waco Chair, accompanied by a twang on "Walking On Hell's Roof Looking At The Flowers." Similarly, the standout "Fox River," from deep-voiced fellow Waco singer and songwriter Dean Schlabowske, sounds like a social crisis colliding with a personal catastrophe, suburban angst unspooling as Armageddon. "It's like cheap animation, I've seen this scene before," Schlabowske sings on "Circle Tour," and while the band's music may not reinvent a certain strand of barroom country, it plays as if it were trying, which may be even better.