Wreckless Eric's Hitsville House Band

By 1994, Wreckelss Eric had created another short-lived ensemble, oddly named, the Hitsville House Band. There's no drastic change on their lone album 12:00 Stereo, other than Eric's delving deeper into American country music. Like his first producer, Nick Lowe, Eric's work has always been inflected with steely melodies and emotional nakedness of country song-writing. "Guitar-Shaped Swimming Pool" (with its tip of the Stetson to Webb Pierce) and "Friend's on the Floor" (which squashes most Nashville song-writing beneath it's heel) represent the gut-bucket country aspect of the album. While raw, primal rock n' country courses through the album, Eric hasn't stopped writing pop songs like, "The Girl With the Wandering Eye", a devastatingly melodic post-mortem on love lost.


Then, just to prove he's unclassifiable, Eric unleashes some straight-edge soul with "The Marginal."


Lyrically, Eric's back in a "There's a twenty-ton hammer hanging just above your head" kinda place. "Kiburn Lane" is a gory tale of domestic savagery, "Murder in My Mind" (reminiscent of Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan's "Season of the Witch") is all that its title promises and worse.

12 O'clock High is a dense and knotty record, that must be listened to repeatedly for full effect.

The Hitsville House Band were, according, to the liner notes:

DENIS BAUDRILLART -- drumset and maracas
ERIC GOULDEN -- succession of crapped-out guitars and organs, vocal
FABRICE LOMBARDO -- double bass, bass guitar, Javanese toe flute
André Barreau -- extra guitars, harmony vocals
Michael Lembach -- trumpet
Christoph Linder -- tenor & baritone saxes



{MRML Readers; Whadda ya think? Give us your mini-review of this particular phase in Eric's ever-shifting muddle!!}

Download The Hitsville House Band CD