Showing posts with label johnny nocash & the celtic outlaws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label johnny nocash & the celtic outlaws. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

video review: 'johnny nocash & the celtic outlaws' by johnny nocash & the celtic outlaws


Again, pretty local act, but I'm happy I got a chance to talk about it all the same.

Next up, let's go bigger - stay tuned!

album review: 'johnny nocash & the celtic outlaws' by johnny nocash & the celtic outlaws

I don't normally do full reviews for EPs... but I'm making an exception for this one. 

And yes, in this case I'm very much going to be talking about a relatively unknown band that I'm most familiar with from my local scene just like I did with Sex Master about a month ago, but this group actually falls in line with territory that deserves some scrutiny: the cross-section between country and metal. Now there's been southern rock on the heavy side for years, but fusing outright metal elements like growled or screamed vocals or much more distorted tunings... it's not exactly common. That's not saying it doesn't exist - I've reviewed Panopticon's introduction of bluegrass, folk, and country elements on their black metal records, and of course you get the groove metal bands that interject rockabilly elements like Hellyeah or Volbeat, and towering over most of the conversation you have the punk and metal elements embraced by Hank Williams III... but let's be honest, most of these are outliers.

...except not as much anymore. More often than not you're seeing metal artists taking a renewed interest in country and they tend to treat the genre's legacy with more respect than huge chunks of Nashville - which makes a lot of sense, given that metal is also obsessed with its own historical legacy. And thus you get acts like Devin Townsend making Casualties of Cool, or Cody Jinks coming from thrash, or the deep outlaw country appreciation you hear from a lot of metalheads... which takes us to Johnny Nocash. He's been around for a while - go to his YouTube channel and you'll find songs recorded going back over a decade ago - but in recent years his material has taken more shape, infusing elements of folk and metal to refine and expand his country sound, which leads to his backing band the Celtic Outlaws and this EP. Five songs, probably a quick enough listen, how did it turn out?