Like their neighbours The Dirtbombs, THE DETROIT COBRAS have pure, neat rock'n'roll running through their veins, so it comes as no surprise that they can make an album of covers sound like their very own the way Mick Collins' boys did with "Ultraglide In Black."
Indeed, with 13 songs clocking in at an economic 31 minutes, the Cobras are poised and ready and slither across the surface of the potentially treacherous 'covers' mire like it's the easiest thing in the world. And - to a band who clearly understand the very essence of this rock'n'roll lark - it probably is.
Drawing heavily on the Southern soul well, the band thirstily drink down tunes like the Dan Penn/ Spooner Oldham corker "Slipping Around" and N'Awlins maestro Allen Toussaint's "Mean Man", while a ripping take of Jack Taylor and Freddy Briggs' "Everybody's Going Wild" whips up a mighty thunder and even finds them getting away with yodelling ferchrissakes.
Meanwhile, only a band simmering with confidence could dare to attempt staples from the Isaac Hayes/ Steve Cropper and Bobby Womack songbooks, but The Cobras smoulder through "Weak Spot" (Hayes/ Crooper) and "Baby Help Me"(Womack) with flying colours and invest Lowman Pauling's "The Real Thing" with the kind of sass X applied to their ramraid of Jerry Lee Lewis's "Breathless."
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Admittedly, some of the source material is less familiar to this reviewer, but even allowing for that it's difficult to deny the Chrissis Hynde sneer Rachel Nagy injects into Billie Jean Horton's "Just Can't Please You" and the firewater-breathing, tom-heavy crunch of "I Wanna Holler", which is the kinda thing my beloved Gun Club woulda just feasted upon.
The band are lean, hungry and drilled throughout, and even when reining it in on the sole ballad - an attractively faithful saunter through Naomi Neville's "It's Raining" - they play with an understanding that's almost supernatural. Elsewhere, the sole original song "Hot Dog" is a dumb-ass delight and anything but dwarfed by the competition. The fact Rachel sings it like temptation on a stick doesn't exactly hurt either.
Like their two previous efforts, "Life, Love & Leaving" and "Mink, Rat Or Rabbit", "Baby" is a rock'n'roll jamboree par excellence. An adopted love child it may be, but you'd be hard put to find prouder foster parents than The Detroit Cobras.
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