Moreland & Arbuckle / Just a Dream (TELARC)
So The Black Crowes and White Stripes go out drinking. They get pie-eyed and have a booze soaked one-night stand. Substances are ingested and they go at each other for hours. It gets kinky - fetishes are explored, roles are played, and fantasies are fulfilled. But as it sometimes goes with such sloppy encounters, accidents happen and nine months later ZZ Top delivers a bastard child into the world. They slap it on its ass, dust it with Fred McDowell’s ashes, and abandon it in a back alley on the wrong side of the tracks somewhere in Wichita. The orphan calls itself Moreland & Arbuckle and it grows up to become a hard-driving duo whose hold-nothing-back delivery is every bit as powerful as any of its progenitors.
Just a Dream,Moreland & Arbuckle’s fourth studio album, is steeped in tradition but the production is pure 21st Century - warm and creamy overdriven vocals and guitar tones inhabit every second of the groove-heavy record. For sure there’s plenty here to keep your foot tapping. The hook on “Good
Love” is about as infectious as a hook can be while the persistent licks on “White Lightnin’,’” played by Steve Cropper (still channeling Lowman Pauling) make for some fun listening. Yet as hard as Moreland & Arbuckle rock, their true power is revealed when they take the energy down as they do in “Shadow Never Changes” and “So Low.”
To be fair, the record would have been more cohesive without “Heart Attack and Vine” and “Gypsy Violin.” The former track feels out of place and unconvincing, while the latter plays like Beatle-esq studio gibberish and should have been left off the album or at least hidden a few minutes after the disc ends. That said, Just a Dream is an excellent record. It advances like a virus, getting into your system and not letting go until it’s run its course. So if you need something to play loud while you’re getting dressed for the party on Saturday night, cruising around with a six-pack, or having your own one-night stand, go buy this record. Robert Kimmel (rk@goodminstrelsy.com)
