Swamp Cabbage are a fun loving three piece founded by North Florida native Walter Parks, and play what they call "fatback blues and trailer park funk" inspired by the Southern US culture.
They describe 'Squeal'(the follow up to 'Honk'!)) as "a record in which the purdy and the butt-ugly live groove to groove". You get the nessage pretty quickly that this is not a record that takes itself too seriously.
The insights you get from listening are as much sociological as they are musical. It could accurately be subtitled 'more songs about faith, sex and farming'.
You learn that work in Dixieland is slow and sticky and that Southern men's small town values don't fit with big city life. As the comic song 'Feedbag' vividly points out, most of these men are also inclined to live and eat like pigs.
Three of the ten tracks are upbeat instrumentals recommended as suitable soundtracks to watching wet T-shirt contests or stock car races!
The one story song - and the longest track - is called 'Poontang' - a word for female genitalia I wasn't previously aware of. This turns its sights on the hypocrisy of door to door bible sellers : "Church lady had me lathered up - she sold me a bible with her big-D double D cup". (You probably get the picture by now that political correctness doesn't figure high in Swamp Cabbage's priorities).
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Religion appears in a more positive light on the opening and closing tracks - an unironic evangelical piece called Jesus Tone ("without the Jesus Tone I might as well stay home") and on 'Deligation', Parks advises of the need to combine faith with personal responsibilty ("start giving you work to Jesus")
On a raunchier note, 'New Voodoo Boogaloo' is about Parks' band partners (bassist Matt Lindsey and drummer Jagoda) which praises their abilities both on stage and in bedchambers.
There's an endearing tongue in cheek quality to this record and some fine playing too. They may not be the trendiest name to drop casually into conversation but it would take a brave man to argue with their claim that this is the true sound of America's roots.
10 tracks - playing time: 48.19
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