Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs - You Can't Buy a Gun When You're Crying

by Mark Rowland

published: 11 / 8 / 2007

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs - You Can't Buy a Gun When You're Crying

Label: Damaged Goods
Format: CD

intro

Lo-fi and stripped down rockabilly largely recorded as duets from the ever consistent Holly Golightly

Since Holly Golightly left Thee Headcoatees in the early 90s, she has made consistently good records, usually based around a mix of rhythm ‘n’ blues, 60's pop and Billie Holliday-esque slow numbers. With her new album, as part of duo the Broke-Offs, Golightly breaks slightly from her usual fare to make a distinctively lo-fi, stripped down, rockabilly album. It kicks of with the delightfully cluttering ‘Devil Do’, a simple blues propelled by tin pot beats and mechanical whirs. It’s followed by the waltz-y ‘Just Around the Bend’, which is sung beautifully by Golightly. ‘Everything You Touch’ sounds like a lost June Carter song while ‘You Can’t Buy a Gun’ is more like Golightly’s usual stuff, albeit a little folkier. Songs like ‘Medicine Water’ and ‘Crow Jane’ are decent country duets, ‘Time to Go’ is a darker number, similar to the kind of spooky western music that Handsome Family specialise in. Although most songs are duets, Golightly dominates the vocals on the album, singing that bit more than Lawyer Dave, but without him this wouldn’t be as affective an album as it is. His and Golightly’s voice compliment each othe well, particularly on ‘Jesus Don’t Love Me’. This is a very nice homage to southern American roots music, channelling the original music while also refreshing it.

Track Listing:-

1 Devil Do
2 Just Around The Bend
3 Everything You Touch
4 Medicine Water
5 You Can't Buy A Gun
6 Crow Jane
7 So Long
8 Time To Go
9 Black Heart
10 Clean In Two
11 Jesus Don't Love Me
12 I Let My Daddy Do That
13 Whoopie Ti Yi Yo
14 Devil Don‚Äôt

Label Links:-

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