Reckless Country Soul

Jason & The Nashville Scorchers (Mammoth/Praxis)

By Patrick Daily, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri
February 29, 1996

Copyright 1996-2004 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Warner Hodges has not yet developed his precision-bombing guitar style, Jason Ringenberg’s voice cashes in power and finesse for speed, and the liner notes gush like an oil well blowing water. Still, in 1982 this band was a pretty good idea, if not much else.
This retrospective album, put together from the band’s first EP of the same title and unreleased cuts, goes by fast, which was part of the idea - to apply punk’s “louder faster” rules to some beloved country classics and slavishly-written originals. Some of the songs (“Shot Down Again,” “Help! There’s a Fire”) would appear more fully realized on their major-label albums.
But rockin’ slop doesn’t get more so than the loving (in spirit, of course) cover “Jimmie Rodgers’ Last Blue Yodel” or the clownish medley “I’d Rather Die Young/Candy Kisses.” And while “Pray For Me Momma (I’m a Gypsy Now)” promises more than it delivers, the promise would eventually be kept. Jason eventually worked out some kind of compromise between screech and soul, and Warner Hodges could nowadays take out Dresden if he had to.

© 1996-2004 — The St. Louis Post-Dispatch — All Rights Reserved