Album Review: Chris Shiflett and The Dead Peasants - 'All Hat and No Cattle'

14 July 2013 | 9:22 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

If pedal steel, blues piano, and drawn-out country whines are your thing, you may just enjoy this album.

While Shiflett's work in 'All Hat and No Cattle' is far from the powerful rock he is most known for contributing to in Foo Fighters, if pedal steel, blues piano, and drawn-out country whines are your thing, you may just enjoy this album. 'All Hat and No Cattle' follows the band’s self-titled debut from 2010, where Shiflett’s individual musical skill was first recognised.

Even when it may seem as if Chris Shiflett and The Dead Peasants could be any old blues / country cover band jamming out, there is one thing that’s for certain, and it is that it would take a very good band to play these songs.

The entire album was recorded, minus vocals and pedal steel, together as a band from a selection of the group’s live set. Unmistakably, it feels like a 10 song set with the subtle shifts in sound that build along the way. ‘Guitar Pickin’ Man’ opens the album as a standard 12 bar blues-esque song, beginning the transition of genre that occurs over the 10 tracks.

The blues feeling is sustained in ‘Good Time Charlies’ while some of the country vibes, which develop through the album start to come through. Country continues to come out further along in the album, with tracks like ‘Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young’ and ‘Skid Row’.

Chris Shiflett and The Dead Peasants finally arrive at rock, or as close to rock as the band ever get, with the last song, ‘Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?’ It is surely the most flowing track of the whole album, at times adopting U2 vibes, but those stylistic features of country are still found throughout.

'All Hat and No Cattle' is crammed with a collection of short tracks that often find their way to instrumental flourishes, which almost any music fan could appreciate. Around the mark.

1. Guitar Pickin' Man (Don Rich and the Buckaroos)

2. Good Time Charlie's (Del Reeves)

Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter

3. Pop A Top (Jim Ed Brown)

4. Happy Part OfTown (Wynn Stewart)

5. Skid Row (Merle Haggard)

6. Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young (Faron Young)

7. Playboy (Wynn Stewart)

8. King Of Fools (Buck Owens)

9. A Woman Like You (Original)

10. Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? (Waylon Jennings)