Hicksville Bombers - Prettiest Girl In Town (CD 1999)

This is the greatest rockabilly I've heard in a long, long time. And I have been listened to very much music in and around that style. The Hicksville Bombers got a fresh lightness in their music, beautifull melodylines, a perfect driving beat and a hearttearing use of minorchords. A perfect balance between roughness and sweetness, fury and poetry. Clear vocals and quite interesting guitarplaying. It was music like this that first turned me in to rockabilly many years ago. I've heard enough that turns me off. This cathing on. I hear it all the time.
Since I've got this album- a pair of weeks ago - I've heard it almost every day. Sometimes several times a day. For all fans of rockabilly who got sick and tired of songs about vampires and zombies, of what sounds like competitions in speed/fast playing, of the music getting lost in hair and tatoos, of a lot of noise, and of screaming and stuttering singers going "b-bop-b-bop" through tuneless tunes, here is someting else! Real songs with real melodies, lyrics about plain ole love and heatache. Not pop or polished, but cathing the true romance of the style, but still with a touch of something raw, used in the way it is suposed to be. Relaxed and controlled, but still getting off and blasting away. Getting a quite unique mood 'n' atmosphere in the way smiling and driving goodtime-feel of wellswingin' rockabilly meets the melancholia of heartbreak. The Hicksville Bombers are loyal to the 50's but not sounding like some specific 50's star. It's not that "Oh - they like ..." stuff. Not copying any idol - just plaing that kind of music. If you are notoric about references, you could perhaps describe it as some kind of blend of Ricky Nelson, Charlie Feathers, Carl Mann, Sanford Clarke, Mac Curtis and early Gene Vincent mixed with some flavours from such 80's revivalists as The Rimshots and The Magnetics. I guess that makes it central and typical rockabilly from the lesser noisy end, but with it's own personal aproach, extremely charming, and really great. Not new or original, but just sounding so good that it filles you with warm good-feel from head to toe, and played with autority. These guys put them self into it. I really think they mean it - and mean it from the heart.