If there is one band in this fast paced world which gives the body an even more intensive and thorough workout it is undoubtedly King Salami and the Cumberland 3. This is a band where an Automated External Defibrillator should always be on hand at every show they play, waiting and ready to revive the inevitable wasted bodies. Now that need has been transferred to the band’s records. When playing all three of the band’s albums back to back, apart from a danger to health, it is a hard choice to say which is best, all in their openly individual ways an equal treat, but without doubt Goin’ Back To Wurstville is the most demanding and exciting for heart and limbs yet.
The new album from the Sultan of Sausage and his fellow creative rascals is a blur of incitement, a cavalcade of irresistible temptation for feet and hips. Each of its thirteen songs teases and infests the psyche, sharing groove woven rhythm & blues punk ‘n’ roll to lose all shades of sanity to. As ever, it is a busy time for the quartet; gigs coming up at a rate of knots across the globe before and even more so after their highlight performance on the BBC show The UK’s Best Part-Time Band last year. With the outfit in the middle of a UK tour right now and featuring in Roger Corman’s movie, Death Race 2050, you can be sure that Goin’ Back To Wurstville is only going to accelerate the demand on the boys and their riotous sound.
Featuring Spencer Evoy from fellow body contorters MFC Chicken and his salacious sax, Goin’ Back To Wurstville quickly gets down to business with Pineapple Mama, the song feeding off the album’s lively Intro with an initial bass groan and flames of fiery sax, they leading to an insistent romp of riffs and rhythms led by King Salami’s inevitable energy and vocal revelry. It is party time, the song swinging from the rafters with body enslaving grooves dangling their insatiable bait to further ensnare ears and limbs. Soul, r&b, rock ‘n’ roll and more excitable flavours all get involved in the multi-flavoured proposal, King Salami and co straight away feeding greedy hopes with a fresh new adventure.
The pugilistic rascality of Nosebleed Boogie is next, guitars and sax colluding in a devilish enticement of melodic theatre as King Salami uses Ali like vocal footwork to evade the rhythmic punches, his magnetic prowess like a blend of Bo Diddley and Little Walter before offering even feistier fun in the boisterous romp of Busy Body. An infection of spicy grooves and virulent riffs, the song ensures the listener is on the end of major manipulation echoing its title before the glorious adventure of King Ghidorah rises up from its oriental bed with sixties cinematic adventure fuelling its melodies and rhythms. With King Salami a dramatic narrator, T. Bone Sanchez’s grooves are a three headed tempting of flirtatious hookery, melodic seduction, and tenacious persuasion, theatre skirted by the addictive rhythmic rumble of bassist Kamikaze UT Vincent and drummer Eric Baconstrip.
There is no escaping the frisky intent of the following King Size Love, its rockabilly nurtured stroll manhandled by addiction shaping rhythms and coloured with more of the salacious enterprise which continually and artfully springs from the guitar of Sanchez across the album. Feet and hips are swiftly lost to the song’s shuffle, lungs already gasping for breath by this point within Goin’ Back To Wurstville but managing to find plenty more air for the blues strung jungle of She Was A Mau Mau and after that, the garage punk lined surf rock lit antics of No Stoppin’. The first of the two is a sweltering near on muggy affair for the heart whilst its successor is a blaze of instrumental rock ‘n’ roll which has the body at its most frenetically subservient in the hands of the album.
The treats just keep coming too; Tiger In My Tank keeps the listener moving like a puppet on tricky strings of rhythmic pestering and melodic misbehaviour, all urged on by the saucy blasts of sax and King Salami’s inexhaustible energy and spirited character.
Stutterin’ Sue leaps around with garage rock rapacity and raw captivation next while Camel Hop after that sees roving basslines and agitated beats stir up another voracious contagion of sound and spirit rousing enterprise, sultry Arabian scented grooves winding around ears and appetite as rock ‘n’ roll rumbles in the belly of song and listener. Both tracks are an epidemic of temptation, unrelenting creative persistence more than matched by the Johnny Kidd and The Pirates hued Shiver which follows.
Concluded by the double diablerie of firstly the album’s dirt encrusted rock ‘n’ roll road trip going under its title track moniker and lastly the carnival of Latin summer fun that is Caramba!, the sensational Goin’ Back To Wurstville is bliss for ears and soul. With each of the King Salami and the Cumberland 3 releases we seem to offer nothing but lustful praise so with their third full-length we were determined to find something which might be suggested the band could improve upon. Quite simply we failed, though you know the band will still find something fresh and bolder next time and with regards to best album question, listening it as these fingers tap, yep Goin’ Back To Wurstville wins the debate.
Goin’ Back To Wurstville is out now on Dirty Waters Records @ http://www.dirtywaterrecords.co.uk/shop/#!/King-Salami-and-the-Cumberland-Three/c/2793708/offset=9&sort=normal
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Pete RingMaster 22/03/2017
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