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So, what the hell does "Songs of Desperation" sound like?

Lonesome Wyatt and the Minister have smashed their brains together in order to bring you their first full length CD "Songs of Desperation". This compact disc includes 11 never before heard tracks. Get on your knees, sinner, and pray that God ain't gonna send you to the fiery pit! Click HERE to listen!

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Let's get on with the goddamn reviews!

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Oh Those Poor Bastards. Who'd have thought.

Last week I received a couple new discs from the venerable Gravewax Records. Among these, the new release from Those Poor Bastards. If you've never heard of them, fear not - but consider yourself warned. Imagine a combination of Cash and Cave and you'd be on the right track; though they throw in a deviously weird undercurrent that contradicts what you might dismiss as something too country for your sensitive ears.

Overall this album was a good listen the first time through but by the third play it really grew on me. Like I said, it does have a country-ish feel to it but I mean that in the most menacing of ways. While I'd be hard pressed to point out a track I'd skip over, I won't give a second thought to what I think is the best one of the lot. "A Bone To Pick" is, bar none, my favorite. That it is the shortest one on the disc - weighing in at a svelt 54 seconds - doesn't matter. There's a lot of mean in those few lines. Very satisfying.

The Gravewax stable isn't large yet, but they more than make up for it in quality releases. If you're looking for something creepy to break you out of the three chord doldrums, Those Poor Bastards hit the (coffin) nail on the head.

The Fiendish Files of the Black Order - February 2006

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First the time, which is anything from the mid-19th Century onwards, then the place, which could be anywhere desolate with a high proportion of inbred lunatics, and finally the sounds that eviscerate a raw country beat and slap it around, douse it in humour and allows husks of humanity to bake in its sarcastic heat. Sound good to you? I got an e-mail recently announcing the album was finally available and admitting that Lonesome Wyatt and The Minister would welcome me burning in the eternal fires of Hell.

They’re brilliant, because these are simple themes given murderous form and life, and despite all the fiery talk the singing is usually charming, the music seedily seductive. This isn’t anal country, and it isn’t twee. This is hobos and drifters using songs like diaries or confessionals.

‘This Is Desperation’ comes on immediately with a spaghetti western feel that would make the Nephilim pee themselves in fear, and the ending scream is alarming. ‘With Hell So Near’ is idiotically jolly with a cool, smooth chorus and words to enthral because when it comes to visual lyrics Lonesome take some beating, as he reveals.

“Fighting with some guy who’s twice my size
He’s got the look of murder in his beady, empty eyes
Luckily for me I bought my knife
So I stab him once
Then he
Smashes
in
my
face

“Well, no one tries
to stop my fall
I look to them as they
stand there
and applaud!”

His protagonists never inspire support, which gives everything a gritty realism for all the sly mischief. ‘They Don’t Make Folks Like They Used To’ puts the ho in hoedown, but it’s also got a sour feel behind cool observations. The gloomy ‘Shadows Fall’ manages to be simultaneously beautiful and maudlin in an affecting manner. You’re nodding along as he sings about trying to kill himself and a lame dog! ‘Drunk With Fear’ is a jolting punky rant with chunky guitar and stern drums, while ‘Deep In The Mud’ is intentionally riddled with old fashioned distortion as the song creaks along, and it also shows they’ve got a different sound per song yet still fit it all into a cosy, orderly character.

‘My Last Dollar’ is a light-hearted love battle with easygoing guitar and soused sermonising.
‘A Bone To Pick’ is weirdly theatrical with its dying banjo and creepy lyrics but suddenly it’s gone, like a threat. ‘Among The Pines’ covers a disappearance of a woman and the nightmares of someone who heard her scream and did nothing, even though he saw and recognised the killer. There’s no redemption here either, as he ends by reiterating that he’s keeping quiet!

‘Death Ain’t You Go No Shame?’ is an old, battered and scraped tune which seems based on ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’ and flickers irritatingly, before the gravelly ‘Drown In The River’ details a string of deaths which is a suitably far-from-heartening end and emphasises how little they care about sentimentality! These boys really are bastards.

How good are they really? Well, Johnny Cash would have bought a copy. Probably even covered a couple, and I ain’t lying.

Mick Mercer

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“Thank God for Those Poor Bastards” was my first thought after listening to the band’s first full-length album. In Songs of Desperation, Lonesome Wyatt and the Minister have created an incredible gothic country album loaded with wonderfully haunting melodies and gloomy vocals, along with well-written fire-and-brimstone lyrics. What more could one ask for?

Well, how about some diversity? This is one element I wasn’t necessarily expecting from this record, but Those Poor Bastards delivered. Having heard their earlier EP, Country Bullshit, I was expecting more of what I had heard from that release. The songs were great (the EP includes the excellent zombified Jimmie Rodgers-like song “Black Dog Yodel” and “Pills I Took,” which has been covered by Hank Williams III), but all had the same general sound and style. Not so with Songs of Desperation. Each of the album’s 9 full songs is different, and has a style all of its own. The album begins with a nice introduction track, and listeners are then treated to “With Hell So Near”: a song melodically every bit as catchy as “Pills I Took,” but with more thought-provoking lyrics. Next comes the fuzz-fused “They Don’t Make Folks Like They Used To,” a powerful, clever, Flannery O’Connor-like stab at the failure of the current culture. The album’s third song, “Shadows Fall,” is perhaps its best lyrical song. Quiet and stark, it would feel right at home on one of Johnny Cash’s American Recordings. After bringing listeners this depressing little treat, the band then blows them away with the straight-up rock-and-roll that is “Drunk With Fear.” This song about the reality of war may seem a little out of place on the record at first, but it’s so powerful and well written, it doesn’t take long for one to forget about it. Next comes a pair of songs that would fit right in on the earlier EP: “Deep in the Mud” and “My Last Dollar.” “Mud” is the classic boy-meets-girl song… Those Poor Bastards style, in all of its gothic lyrical glory. The piano really adds to this one, giving it a pinch of Old West spice. “Dollar” is fun little number, and its sound is reminiscent of Johnny Dowd. The “intermission” track, “A Bone to Pick,” follows and leads listeners into the fascinating “Among the Pines.” The mood for this song’s tale of murder (think Edgar Allan Poe in a southern gothic world) is set right away by the song’s creepy melody, and one is kept on edge all the way through. Then comes the album’s biggest surprise: the beautiful chain-gang chant, “Death Ain’t You Got No Shame.” Featuring only Wyatt and the Minister’s vocals, it hits hard and while the inclusion of such a song was a surprise, it is quite a welcome addition. Finally, the record ends with its darkest track, “Drown in the River,” and its silent message of death leaves one considering his or her own mortality by the time it fades out.

Great from start to finish, the record’s only drawback is its length. Clocking in just over 30 minutes, one is really left wanting more. Still, this is minor and the album is worth much more than the price. Their songs lyrically clever and melodically diverse, Those Poor Bastards add a punk rock punch to gothic country music, and if Songs of Desperation is a sign of things to come, we all better start praying to God above now that there will not be a long wait for the next record.

Jared Morningstar

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I have to hand it to the two men behind alt country/southern rock everyman outfit Those Poor Bastards, they definitely know what they are doing. Lonesome Wyatt and The Minister are not your typical cryin' in my beer country music types, nor are they churning out any "my girl done gone and left me" laments. What they DO bring us are exactly what their newest album title implies, and the formula works. SONGS OF DESPERATION may not be the soundtrack to honky tonkin' and good times, but it sure is the stuff that hangovers, depression and fear are made of.

The record starts off with the midpaced plunk of "This Is Desperation" and doesn't seem to let up on the stark and bleak lyrical content from there. Elsewhere, they tend to get nearly creepy and downright weepy on such ditties like "Deep In the Mud" and the weary melancholy of "Death Ain't You Got No Shame?". All of it smacks deliberately of Tom Waits, a more subdued Drive By Truckers and Ween's country albums amongst a pack of smokes and a fifth of Tennessee whiskey. It ain't traditional by way of a steel guitar and uvula wagging vocals, but it is traditional in the sense of the long lost art of the murder ballads brought to us many moons ago by the Kossoy Sisters.

Whether or not they take themselves too seriously is debatable and whether or not you can sit through "Hell So Near" without feeling just the least bit uneasy still remains to be seen. Sure, this isn't what we're used to over here at Horrorwood, but if you open up your mind and have your sense of humor in check, Those Poor Bastards make hopelessness and loathing sound pretty damn good....

TB Monstrosity - Horrorwood Babbleon, March 14, 2006

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Those Poor Bastards sound like the musical interpretation of a Howard Finster painting. The band's Southern Gothic sound on Songs Of Desperation is reminiscent of Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Myssouri if they all jammed with that banjo-playing kid from Deliverance.

Jonathan Williams - Prick Magazine, April 2006