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May 28, 2021
Music, Reviews
“GET HAMMERED” BY JESSE & THE HOGG BROTHERS
When it comes to a group of rough and rowdy Texan musicians releasing music under the self-innovated genre label of “CowPunk,” look no further than the energetic and wholly bonkers music of Jesse & The Hogg Brothers. Over the last decade, the band (coming as a family unit) has polished covers of country-rock hits while furthering their reach as original creatives within the same stratosphere. Their latest effort Get Hammered is a new chapter for the family band, and while it features some songs the band has already recorded once more, it overall feels like a more mature step forward in a production-quality sense while still never losing its core sense of humor, which should ultimately be expected from a group with an album named White Trash Meth Lab.
Get Hammered opens with “The Hammer,” which shares a riff similar to Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” in sound; the lyrical content couldn’t be any less similar, however, as Jesse & The Hogg Brothers compose a loose theme song for the album with tongue in cheek humor to be expected from the folks behind the hit song “Wife Swapping Party.” Next up, “Cream Gravy” paints the impressively Southern sensibilities of the band’s core with broad strokes as it lists the endless cuisines that can benefit from an addition of cream gravy. The song is extremely simplistic in its structure and it never takes itself too seriously, which benefits the tone of the album greatly. A moment of seriousness does breach the goofy surface in “Black & Blue” which feels like a send-up to country ballads more than it does feel likes its attempt at being one, but the sentiment still pays off. The overall pacing of the track is notable as it is the one song on Get Hammered that surpasses five minutes, demanding a bit more attention than most of the other pieces.
The thirteen tracks featured on Get Hammered otherwise all stay within a niche range, and the essence of CowPunk is seemingly alive and well by maintaining the essence as such. The value of balancing the comedic prowess within songs with titles like “She’s Done Gone to the Gittin’ Place” while still delivering impressive instrumental compositions heightens the virtue of satire within the band’s approach. There’s a genuine admiration and craft in the band’s approach, as silly as they seem to be at times. There’s no predicting exactly where Jesse & The Hogg Brothers will go next across the album’s tracklist.
APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jesse-the-hogg-brothers/1492502310
Get Hammered as an album is an impressive glimpse into the world of Jesse & The Hogg Brothers and will certainly translate well into a live show; the band has even gone the extra mile to press LP copies of the project, so you’ll be able to hear the band croon “Wait a minute, I just farted. Something in my ass has departed,” from the comfort of your record player. There’s simply no telling where the album will take you, and even having listened to it several times, the laughs are still as consistent and unexpected as ever.
John McCall