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With punk infused riffs supported by a dragging slide guitar Tumbledown’s second studio album, Empty Bottle has a cavalcade of whiskey drinking honky tonk tunes hell bent on expressing the weekend bender with a rockabilly twist.
This stumbling drunk full-length album throws down a booze swilling journey through memory (or lack thereof) lane as the boys of Tumbledown show that they are what they are a “lil’ bit western and a lil’ bit punk rawk.” In the midst of a long tour last year, the band has birthed a new genre of music called pop punkabilly.
Fronted by MxPx mainstay Mike Herrera with a trio of music-slaying troubadours, Tumbledown takes a look at the woes of drifting from town to town, love and drinking to forget.
Opening with the bouncy drum line of “Places in this Town,” the progression from Tumbledown’s first album, which packed a mostly rockabilly sound, to its new more pop punk country infused sound is obvious. Continuing in the same vein, “Meet the Devil,” “Arrested in El Paso Blues” and “St. Peter” combine a punk sound, shaken and not stirred, with a twist of country. It brings the band’s new music fusion to light and doesn’t pull any punches.
Carrying the lyrical theme of the album, “Empty Bottle,” “A Thousand More Times” and “Drink to Forget” pinpoint hardcore drinking as a coping method. All three tracks are stacked with Herrera on the acoustic guitar and backed with roving bass lines and high throttle drumming.
The hottest song on the album is “Dead Man Walking.” It starts out with a deep acoustic riff, reminiscent of Johnny Cash covering Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage,” and an echo in the lead guitar that gives a full body to a deep, brooding song. “Dead man walking on a trail that’s grown so cold” resonates with those who have worked their way from town to town and bar to bar in hopes of escaping the pains of ill-begotten, lonely lives.
The only answer lies at the bottom of an empty bottle and when the night is all said and done, its time to move on. It’s the quintessential anthem of the rambler.
The closing track “Not Hung Over (A True Story)” has the perfect combination of stand-up bass, twangy guitar and acoustic appeal. When it’s married with Herrera’s stabbing voice, the song puts a perfect end to an excellently mastered and recorded album of newly minted pop punkabilly tunes.
Though Herrera and the boys don’t want to be tied down to any specific sound, it’s hard not to say they are hatching a new genre for the rest of the world to enjoy. Drinking, fighting and forgetting are each a must in rockabilly and country music cultures, and Tumbledown is a vehicle serving up that message in massive doses.
