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Cowboys Nightmare "Luck" - Independent Written by: William Michael Smith Some chord of Zen perfection is struck when an all-female country band calls itself Cowboy's Nightmare. Don't let the glossy photographs of these six well-groomed Houston ladies lead you to make the mistake of thinking they are just some cutesy, eye-catching novelty act with a gimmicky name. Their songs, all originals, are rock solid, and their playing and production is right on the money. Their Luck cd is filled with great hooks, great voices, and a plethora of tasteful country licks. It just goes to show how upside down the music business is today that these ladies, with only this one independently released CD to their credit, have already had two #1 singles and a #3 on the English independent release country charts. It doesn't take many listens if it takes more than one, it's been too long since your last hearing test to understand that the Cowboy's Nightmare sound is commercial radio friendly without veering across the line into the schmaltzy false sentimentality and saccharine pop sounds that make up many of the current country hits on the US charts. Willie Nelson heard them and immediately extended a personal invitation to appear at his Farm Aid show in 2000. Now that's an endorsement any Texas country band would kill for. These ladies may all have manes of Texas big hair and plenty of showbiz makeup and costuming, but they also put plenty of oomph in their performance. They aren't some little dainty group of wallflowers dinking around making soft, sensitive, pretty tea party appropriate sounds with their instruments. Like much of what passes for "Texas country" today and is entirely acceptable at "country" venues, many of their tunes use rock beats, rock progressions, and plenty of big guitar licks. There is even the occasional sidetrack into a countrified power pop sound with lush, full harmonies. I suspect their opening track, "More Like Your Mama," is what Brooks and Dunn might sound like after a sex change. It's a hard-edged, uptempo, big-sound country rock track with lots of electric violin and lead guitar. The sound is of a quality that would allow one to assume this record was made in a Nashville studio, but the sound is pure Texas circuit. "More Like Your Mama" was one of the tracks from Luck that scored a #1 in England. Read more.... |
Cowboy's Nightmare - Luck Available at iTunes. |