perfidy

You can be sure of one thing in this life: album projects involving Jon Spencer (late of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the Jon Spencer Folk Implosion) are either going to rock hard or suck mightily. Part of the problem is that Spencer frequently comes off as a smarmy con man, perpetrating a giant put-on on anybody dumb enough to actually enjoy the deeply unserious dreck he's putting down. (For what it's worth, I happen to feel the same way about Bob Dylan these last few years, so discerning music fans may assign my opinions whatever worth they deem fit.)

However, if he’s a con man, he’s frequently a good one, as several Blues Explosion records and his collaboration with actual bluesman R.L. Burnside, A Ass Pocket of Whiskey demonstrate.

It also appears that working with others reigns in Spencer's worse tendencies. A Ass Pocket worked in part because Spencer's noisy non-blues approach meshed well with Burnside’s down-and-dirty Mississippi sound.

The same goes for Spencer's new project, Heavy Trash, whose eponymous debut is now out on Yep-Roc. Spencer has teamed with guitarist/bassist Matt Verta-Ray, formerly of the great 90s also-rans Madder Rose and now of Speedball Baby to produce – get this - an album of wild, woolly, and completely (in)sincere rockabilly.

Since rockabilly has always been a genre custom-made for put-ons, characters, and spastic craziness, Spencer's hiccupping vocals and manic guitar work come off not as schick but as loving nods to classic rockabilly weirdos like The Collins Kids and Shorty Ashford, not to mention the masters of cartoony psychobilly, The Cramps. Neither as slick as the Stray Cats nor as trashy as The Cramps, Heavy Trash might be the best thing Spencer has been involved in since the mid-1990s.

Good rockabilly, like good blues, relies more on personality than on talent or training. The ability to play helps, but any shortcomings can be over come through simple force of character. The ability to play simple music with great conviction is therefore crucial to both genres. And despite Spencer's and Verta-Ray's backgrounds as ironic hipsters producing noisy indie music and precious power pop respectively, the best songs on Heavy Trash can take their place in the rockabilly canon.

Chock-full of spanky guitar and slap bass, Heavy Trash offers wild rave-ups and cool, angular workouts in the finest Sun Records style. Highlights include the raucous "The Hump," "Justine Alright," “The Loveless” and the album opener "Dark-Hair'd Rider." Although thirteen songs is perhaps one too many for a rockabilly revival album, Heavy Trash generally adds up to an honest-to-God chopped and channeled hot roddin’ good time.

The only songs that even approach the “suck mightily” standard are "Mr. K.I.A.," which features some out-of-place turntable scratching, and "Gatorade," which suffers from sophomoric lyrics and uncharacteristically tepid playing. Still, two duds out of thirteen is a spectacular ratio for a Spencer project. Overall, Heavy Trash is righteous fun.

(This post also appears at blogcritics.org.)