Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The Highway Men - s/t ep (1986, I Wanna)

Oh boy.  I have a feeling this Dayton, OH bunch may have gotten an earful from another band of Highwaymen making the rounds around the release of this humble four-songer.  No, the surnames of these profoundly less renown Highway Men did not entail the likes of Jennings, Cash and Nelson in their stable, but so be it.  This not-so-supergroup of Midwest everymen did however deliver a solid dollop of twang to the table on the pedal steel-enhanced "After the Sun," an earnest, ballad-esque slice of Americana.  My palate finds driving, assertive rave-ups like "Burndown" and the band's concluding theme song to be considerably more stimulating, in a manner not far removed from say, The Reducers.  The Highway Men eventually relocated to Austin, TX and rechristened themselves Loose Diamonds.  On a purely trivial note, I Wanna Records was also responsible for Guided By Voices' debut wax, Forever Since Breakfast, which dropped the same year as this record. 

01. Burndown
02. Wearin' Away
03. After the Sun
04. The Highwaymen

Hear

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