Swamp Voodoo are from Oakland, California, and this is their first CD which features five tracks of top story telling very much in the style of the late Captain Beefheart. This is all set to a very tight swamp blues soundtrack that evokes the spirit of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Starting off with ‘Gravely Impo’tent’, an excellent tale all about starting up your own grave robbing business and selling the corpses, the lyrics are intelligent and witty.“Wasn’t makin’ much money, we had to find a way/ To increase our daily income, thought maybe the dead could pay/ So we’d sell them bodies an’ they’d come take ‘em away.”
From here the central character progresses to murder, all delivered in a wry muttered monologue courtesy of lead vocalist, Slick Black: “Now business is good, the money’s all mine/ The bodies keep comin’ there’s always a line/ As for the job I feel quite fine/ But about the wife….well I miss her sometime.”
‘Heartastake’ which follows is a good fast rocking number with a nice line in blues harp, and recount the vampire story from the perspective of the Van Helsing character:- “Been goin’ after them kind ever since the beginning of time/ Used to bother him some, but now he pay it no mind/ These here are the worst so it just don’t seem a crime.” Eventually, the vampire hunter catches up with and despatches his prey: - “Drove that stake just as deep as can be/ Sayin’, “You’re goin’ to hell by the hand of me.”
‘Cool As Can Be’ relates the story of a gambling cheat, who gets murdered following a fight over the winnings and this is followed by ‘Downspout’ Which starts off with some great bluesy sax, and is all about a lady gangster similar to ‘Ma Baker’, who botches a robbery:- “Ain’t givin’ up or a’ getting’ caught/ when she hears the cops shout/ So she starts ‘a firin’ while lookin’ for her way out.”
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Ultimately she comes to a grizzly end at the hands of the law:-
“Everyone was shootin’ yeah, ain’t nowhere to run/ When you’re a criminal, you die with your gun.”
The final track on the E.P. is the eight minute long ‘Alien Hairdo’, at rack that comes across almost as avant garde jazz in some ways, and details an alien abduction and the tasting of a mighty amount of alien whiskey! “When outta nowhere came this tray of alien whiskey/ We drank some whiskey….a lotta whiskey….I was drunk."
Overall I liked this one. It made a refreshing change to see overt humour in the lyrics. Yes, I know that this sort of arena was for years dominated by the Cramps, and what this E.P. lacks is the chilling intense psychotic delivery that only Lux Interior could ever truly make his own. However, Swamp Voodoo are certainly worth a listen, and from the sound of this, great fun live!
Swamp Voodoo online
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