More than anything Bloodshot Records has ever released, Daddys Farm pushes the envelope of what might be called insurgent country. A four-piece from Wichita, Kansas, Scroat Belly is actually closer to a breakneck metal band than an alternative country outfit. Mind you, this isnt a criticism. In fact, the albums finest musical moments are its least country ones. The only thing that connects the fine Pistol and its Pavement-like guitar shear to the country tradition, for example, is the unexpected Devil Went Down To Georgia-style fiddle work of guest player Cody Bennett. The head_banging chorus of Drinking & Flailin pounds away like Motor_head, and guitar solos throughout the disc can fleetingly bring to mind such metal heroes as Eddie Van Halen or even Dave Mustaine. At its best, the Scroats brand of twang-metal can sound scary and nearly delirious.
When the band goes for a more obviously country-influenced sound the yee-haw, double-time romp thats now a country-punk cliche the album is less successful. Tracks such as Whiskey-Drinkin S.O.B. and Drinkin Around are played intensely (a good thing) but quite ungainly (not a good thing), and the speed-is-everything arrangements emphasize just how alike many of these songs are. Slower numbers, such as The Booze Wont Let Me Down and The Whiskeys Gone, come off wooden as well, and soulless. Still, even on these performances, the catchy melodies of songwriters Kirk Rundstrom and Rod Wayne Gottstine (who both sing and play guitar) have a way of insisting their way into your head.
The real problem with Daddys Farm is its lyrics. As you can guess from the titles above, getting all liquored up is very important to the characters in Scroat Bellys songs. In fact, theyve got booze on the brain; at least nine of the albums 16 cuts refer to getting drunk or getting high. Again, this isnt an inherent criticism. Country music was getting loaded way before Webb Pierce ever cried There Stands The Glass. But in most of the best drinking songs, regardless of genre, the point isnt to simply consume alcohol so much as it is to express the pain that has encouraged self-medication in the first place. And thats whats missing from Daddys Farm. While it means to present itself as some sort of concept album, the story is muddled at best. Worse, we dont learn anything about the characters beyond a series of white trash cliches: One guys Born In A Barn, another beats his wife, another commits murder, they purt-near all git drunk.
One song threatens to rise above. Honda begins with a guy saying good-bye to a lover. With the manic music falling faster and harder at each verse, he starts into a strained, escalating litany of all the other things he has lost Wheres my keys? and Wheres my shoes? build to Wheres my soul, wheres my strength, wheres my will? The way these telling details reveal the mans mental state awards the bands delirious playing, for once, with a real sense of earned desperation. But then the details build beyond believability (Wheres my blood? he sings, over and over). With that, the honest desperation turns suddenly contrived and the spell is broken, though not before those cool metal guitars rise to the close with one more scary, edgy scream.
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