Dave Simpson 

The Howling Hex, You Can’t Beat Tomorrow

(Drag City)
  
  

Buy this CD at Amazon.co.uk

When Royal Trux were signed to Virgin Records, the band turned in an album - 1997's Sweet Sixteen - that was so awful, the label offered them a third of a million dollars to not make any more. Now that Royal Trux are no more, former frontman Neil Hagerty is still making albums that would cause industry executives to hurl themselves off cliffs.

Failing to build on understanding reviews for the Howling Hex's recent All-Night Fox, Hagerty's latest hurls together fragments of psychedelia, folk, banjos, violins, drum machines and wails. Cobra Heart has a naggingly insistent blues riff, but only the lovely Neil Young-esque title track sees its idea to a tuneful conclusion. When the sound grates, there is at least something to look at on the accompanying DVD, which intersperses live footage, animations and trains.

 

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