Country Love Songs
Letting insurgent country songwriter Robbie Fulks loose in Nashville was sort of like letting the Sex Pistols tour in Texas--just not a good idea. When Fulks got home to his native Chicago though, he had a batch of what most country fans would decidedly not callCountry Love Songs. Despite their provocative titles and sometimes unsavory lyrics, tunes like "She Took a Lot of Pills (and Died)" and "The Scrapple Song" really are pure country--taking their honky-tonk cues from Buck Owens, Webb Pierce and Ray Price. Fulks sings each in a voice somewhere between a warble and a sneer, but that's half the fun of it. Steve Albini's straight-ahead steel-guitar-heavy production is the other. Good, greasy stuff.--Michael Ruby