The Urban Hillbilly Quartet

Item: Lanky But Macho
Author: Michial Farmer

Lanky But Macho

(2000)

Reviewed by Michial Farmer

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Label independentThe Phantom Tollbooth2002

alternative country americana bluegrass

The absolute worst mathematicians in the business are back with a collection of "live tracks, home recordings and unreleased studio gems." There's five of them this time around, augmented by a small army of guests. What they're offering is ten outtakes--certainly up to par with UHQ's previously-released material, but for some reason left on the cutting room floor.

There's a couple of things that tie all of these songs together. The first and most obvious is that they're all quite raw, even more so than the typical UHQ track. As some of these songs are live takes (the album's sparse packaging doesn't say which ones), and as even UHQ's studio albums are loose and easygoing, this makes sense, and doesn't deter from the quality of the record.

The other thing is that many of these songs have a much more classical feel than UHQ has demonstrated in the past. "Praetorius" and "Bad Day for the Mayor" are the obvious suspects here, each being a six minute-plus classical piece, but even more modern songs like "Stars Look Down" are drenched in violins and feel older than they are.

If nothing else, though, Lanky But Macho proves to show the Quartet's range and versatility, beginning with the rough and jagged alt-country rocker "Speed Limit," going through two classical pieces and ending on the dirty, blues-jazz of "Coal Miner" before returning to encore on the novelty "Dog Song." It's certainly worth your money if you enjoyed UHQ's other three records.

4 tocks