Left Lane Cruiser
All You Can Eat
Alive
By Al Kaufman
Left Lane Cruiser is called a lot of different things. Most say it's a blues band, but they are also a hard rock band with a lot of Southern fried attitude. They are their own category. Call them Industrial Redneck, or Country Thrash.
Backed by Brenn "Sausage Paw" Becks' flurry of drums, Freddy J Evans IV's guitar buzzes into the opening track, "Crackalacka," which allows Evans to screams out lines like, "Sweet ass, tastes like chicken." You quickly figure out what these boys from Fort Wayne, Indiana are all about.
Evans is great with the fuzzy blues licks, as he demonstrates on "Broke Ass Blues," but he is also capable of some fancy finger-picking, which he showcases on the almost entirely instrumental "Ol' Fashioned," which also features some of Becks' fine washboard playing.
But for the most part this is big, bold, in your face, industrial blues with a country punk attitude. "Waynedale" pounds along at such a torrid pace, it seems like the perfect music for the next Grand Theft Auto.
Producer Jim Diamond, who worked on the first two White Stripes CDs, should be credited for the full, fuzzy sound. He provided lots of old amps and a bunch of microphones in front of each one to record each muffle and crackle. The result is Megadeth if they had grown up in Louisiana listening to Delta country and blues. Sounds intriguing, don't it?
Left Lane Cruiser play the Star Bar with Scott H. Biram on Friday, October 16.
