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DuVALLS 2/20, METRO “There ain’t no joy like a honky-tonk uptown,” sing Hinsdale’s DuValls, pompadoured and string-tied keepers of the rockabilly flame, on their debut, Introducing…the DuValls (Sophisti-Cat). Actually this Illinois Entertainer showcase at Metro is stretching the definition of “honky-tonk,” and there’s not a single note on this album you haven’t heard before, from Buddy Holly’s jerky ooh-a-hoos to the ring of Eddie Cochran’s hollow-body guitar–but then you don’t come to this stuff looking for originality. You come looking for purity and faith, and the DuValls genuflect in all the right directions. r16 HORSEPOWER 2/20, SCHUBAS Back in 1995 A&M hadn’t a clue what to do with this Colorado trio’s first LP, Sackcloth ‘n’ Ashes. A riotous, twangy tangle of guitar, banjo, and bandoneon, it was too down-home for the alternative nation and too dark and anarchic for the country market. Whether their moment has passed them by in the time it’s taken them to get out the new Low Estate remains to be seen, but if half the bands that claim to have “country heart with punk spirit” had half as much of either as these guys, I wouldn’t be half as depressed by No Depression.
FONDLY 2/24, METRO The PR slobber about Fondly’s second album, F Is for…Fondly (Scratchie/Mercury), which wants me to draw comparisons to Wire, the Minutemen, Devo, and Yo La Tengo, is enough to make me rethink that truism about imitation having something to do with flattery. These locals make pleasant art pop with neither the delirious highs nor the abrasive surprises of those truly inventive bands–they converse passably in the language without adding new words to the vocabulary.
