Rum Bar Records has really been on a roll lately, cranking out cool CDs by the zillions. I always imagine Rum Bar headquarters as being like one of those scenes you see in video footage of commercial fishing boats, where they haul these huge dripping nets out of the sea with a crane and open them up and out plop like twenty tons of silver fish, flopping all over the deck, except instead of fish it’s CDs, and Malibu Lou is standing around in a pea coat inspecting the day’s haul. This particular disc, however, is not one that I would have picked out of the pile if matters were up to me. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s very competently done rockabilly-flavored punk with a standup bass. It’s just that I pretty much ODed on this sort of thing about twenty years ago—I’m sick of black cats and taxi driver hats and spiderweb tattoos and that whole deal. Nothing personal, but this sounds like the kind of thing they played to death at the bar about twenty years ago, sandwiched between Social Distortion and Johnny Cash and the White Stripes and the Dropkick Murphys, and I’ve just sort of had a bellyful of it all, thanks. If such cultural touchpoints still hold great interest for you, consider this a ringing endorsement. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a prosthetic leg to carve out of whalebone. BEST SONG & TITLE: “Bayou Banshees.” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: No actual spiderweb tattoos could be verified here; management regrets the error.–Rev. Nørb (Rum Bar, rumbarrecords.com)