Christian Serpas & Ghost Town, Revved Up and Ready To Go (Independent)

Christian Serpas & Ghost Town, Revved Up and Ready To Go, album cover, OffBeat Magazine, July 2014

No backwards baseball hats and t-shirts for Christian Serpas and Ghost Town. It’s still rhinestone buttons and embroidered shirts, both in fashion and music.

As popular country music retreats to frat-boy anthems and focus-group tested sound, Serpas and Ghost Town have doubled down on rock and roll and honky tonk that they stake their claim and considerable reputation on.

This brief record comes in and gets out like a sharp shot of liquor—it hits hard and quick and leaves you wanting more. Ghost Town’s success comes from the way they mix twang and rock like the power chords that start “Bigger and Better” which soon become a slightly distorted, country-esque seven note lead figure that matches the vocals. Songs like “Revved Up and Ready To Go” are thrusting ’70s rock boogie numbers including references to the song’s object who’s “dancing at the fais do-do” and “cruising around her GTO.”

They’ve got a little bit of Foghat and a little bit of Dash Rip Rock. It’s outlaw music but without calling too much attention to itself. When Serpas sings, “I’ve done lots of things I’d like to forget/lots of foolish things I’d like to forget,” it’s more a statement of fact than a challenge.

They end the record with a version of “You Are My Sunshine,” the state song, with a great contrast of slamming beat and lonesome harmonies that steadfastly and loudly affirm their connection to their home, the most outlaw state in the United States, Louisiana.