The Detroit Cobras - Baby

Genre rock Publisher Bloodshot Records External Links Bloodshot Records

The Detroit Cobra's third full-length release, Baby, lifts you off your seat straight away with the playful, high-energy "Slipping Around," and the momentum continues pretty nicely through "Now You're Gone" (which frankly could have just sat this record out). "Gone" is the first of three pause-for-the-cause dips into the slow, with a little lift of the head in the swinging, "Just Can't Please You," then we're off and running once more as we jump reeling into "The Real Thing." As part of the U.S. release, the Seven Easy Pieces EP is included, extending the song list to twenty. Some of the offerings here are definitely worth inclusion, but this renders the record too long overall. I appreciate this music, and I appreciate the arrangement, the ebbs and flows, Baby just rides one wave too many, in similar fashion to some Southern Culture on the Skids or The Ramones, where sometimes a fast, grab-you-by-the-nuts assertion and an incredibly distinctive sound can cycle around too many times for one album.

The second song, "I Wanna Holler (But the Town's Too Small)" takes a turn at reviving that gunsmokey southwestern sound, a popular maneuver these days (check Electrelane's latest). We thrum fervently with the bass into "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand," the third cut that takes advantage of nothing but Rachel Nagy's remote control-pocket-rocket butterfly voice. Yeah. Now we're going, and it ain't gonna stop real soon. This standout somehow maintains an illusion of naiveté, however, with sweet girl harmonies and playfully punctuated rhythm guitar. "Hot Dog" is the weakest and not coincidentally the only original song on the record. I found the lyrics nearly intolerably punnoying; a stab at playfully funny that falls flat in the grit with no hope of salvation with crap like "I got enough for more than just one man, I got a hot dog in each hand..." spewed forth alongside some of the less inspired rockabilly guitar licks I've heard in a while. The problem is that nothing, not even a notable effort by the foremost expressive experts of the genre, can make it better than the real stuff representative of an unrecoverable time and climate that influenced the music regally fossilized in the cold Detroit roadside mud.

The last quarter of the album, the EP, again knocks it out of the park; a series of five outstanding choices executed with precision, style, and soul, but it shouldn't end with "Insane Asylum," a great cover deserving of representation here, but I'd put it further back, maybe next to "Cha Cha Twist." This should have ended on as quick a tempo as it began. "Heartbeat" stands out in this last section, as does "Silver & Gold," where the guitar and the vocals take the challenge of focus on slow, singular perfection. I needed a cigarette after that one. As a whole, Baby is a good representation of The Detroit Cobra's expertise in discovering, mastering, and adapting obscure rock and R&B classics to conform to their pleasantly abrasive, capricious, hot stuff style.