Green Rode Shotgun “Bang”

Green Rode Shotgun
Bang
8 Ohm

BANG is 8 Ohm Records’ latest release from the grittily shaken, not stirred, indie-pop rock antics of the Tennessee quintet Green Rode Shotgun.

The gang’s second LP is bright and brashly broken with the teenage demeanor of a band that could tour from a nicotine yellow wood-paneled station wagon.

Bang is a firecracker of a rock ‘n’ roll showcase album. But GRS is a band that you have to hear a few times before you can understand the music.

The band is a rapid-fire blend of oldies rock and modern Americana, built to confuse its power with its jaw-clenching psychosomatic energy.

Bang is the sound of the band’s instrumentation within the ear drums. Imaginable influences include a dynamic Tom Petty joining the Violent Femmes with Supergrass punk-rocking chairs in mind.

Gangling vocals and lyrics about suppressed ends and such, stand out as us vs. them while choruses bang around in your head. GRS is pretty to listen to, and full of power chords with clappingly straight beats on the drums.

Green Rode Shotgun is a small town band with a simpleton personality; the songs are mostly about friends, girlfriends and redundancy.

Lyrics like those on the opening track, “All the Same,” are of a persistent and misunderstanding nature.

The soft, wailing vocals are haphazardly strewn about the pouty guitars and podunk rhythms singing, “You’re too involved in what you want/to me it’s all the same …,” and “Today I think the sun should shine/ and I don’t live for nothing but sometimes I rhyme.”

On “Hopeless Crusades,” the vocals chant endlessly “never get/never get/never get it right”

“My Will,” portrays singer Jason Johnson breaking out vocally over the head shaking guitar licks and slap-happy drumming.

All the while he bellows phrases such as, “And it rains out here and it just don’t seem right/ after all these days of fire in the sky.”

Later in the album vocal influences emerge a la The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, all laid against that same lemon-drop backing.

Bang is akin to a sunny southeastern mid-afternoons with the windows down all the way; music blasting, buzzed out overdrive through the new hi-fi tape deck and a small crowd in the back seat.

Two doors for seven passengers and its our first rock holiday in a while. Bang is a rolling rock by way of rock ‘n’ roll, and the doubted conclusion of when the weather will change in the music world.

Contact Sam Bintz at oracletunes@yahoo.com