Text by: John McCall
Couch Jackets are a band of their own mystery, and their new album, Go To Bed, is no exception to that rule. They come from Arkansas with a sense of diversity not found often enough in today’s musical landscape. They mix a lot of genre’s up without being completely uncategorizable, and that poses a challenge for anyone to describe the assortment of directions their sound takes you in but never leaves you without satisfaction in the process. And the result is an interesting and entertaining trip through the light fantastic. The songs are like little islands of their own in the greater concept of it all.
The track list chock full of diverse musical themes under the album’s loosely conceptual base. The opening song is where the mystery begins with “Sideways Chicken.” To begin with, the title breeds a feeling of wonderment to what it’s going to sound like. It winds up a prelude to the next track, but not without its strongly conveyed message. “Pillos N Rillos” is where the album takes off with one of my four top pics around an array of other quality songs. The vocals are what stand out the most in such tracks, but the underlying music is perfectly matched, and this track reaches the echelons of their efforts with a funny lyrical twist.
“Vicious Children” is another of said four tracks and it’s equally as good as the former, except in an entirely different way. It’s all as light as a feather sounding in its weight patterns, but there’s a great twist of occasional bombast to make it even more interesting. This is a truly excellent song in every way. And the groove goes up a notch on “Don’t Think, Just Breathe” as it runs through various stress factors of too much media overkill in the current political environment, along with some other trappings we all see going on. Once again, the music here is second to none but even takes more of a front seat than the former track produces.
The percussive values of “Elephant Tusk (Helluva Musk)” go from the intro and straight into the song without skipping a good note before the vocals get narrative in almost a spoken word method. More bombast is applied to this track as well, and it’s placed in just the right spots to keep your interest and it results in another highlight of the entire album with some great guitar playing. But “Kathy Was All Women” also sweeps the groove into yet another direction, keeping you on your toes with even more variety and an extraordinary amount of changes. This track rocks and swings with the best on – Go To Bed.
You won’t want to “Hit The Sack” just yet, but that is the title of the next track anyway, as it prepares you for the final two which rate up there with everything else before it’s over. “The Tropical Jungle Book Hour” throws you off but it also gets high marks as well, so it is a must inclusion, especially placed before the finale which gets back to one of the four best tracks to keep your full attention as it brings this killer album the option to loop, as it comes recommended to hear time and again.