Friday, December 30, 2011

Restavrant "Yeah, I Carve Cheetahs" Release Date: Jan. 10, 2012 Hillgrass Bluebilly Records


A couple of weeks ago my friend Greg asked me to do an album review of a band called Restavrant for our blog here.  Being busy with school, and family and the holidays it took me a little while to get around to actually listening to it.  What I heard upon my first listen was a spiritual, almost biblical experience.  Restavrant (pronounced restaurant) are a duo hailing from Victoria, Texas featuring Troy Murrah on vocals/guitar/slide/banjo and J. State on drums/vocals/drum machines/ and keys.  In the world of stripped down, guttural guitar driven garage rock these guys are the real deal.  Equal parts country, blues, and rock with a little metal and electronica thrown in for good measure, the sounds that come out of these two guys are quite literally genre defying.  Restavrant sound like Hank III and Jack White’s  hard partying, even harder drinkin’ bastard love child.  Murrah plays fast and with a lotta fuzz, belching out vocals like he’s at an old timey tent revival, except instead of fire and brimstone he’s preachin’ the gospel of Jack Daniels.  Throw in State on his ever evolving drum kit of license plates, suitcases, a gas can, and a tire rim and you have “Yeah, I Carve Cheetahs”, one of the freshest sounding albums I’ve heard all year.  Immediately I was struck by the sheer energy of these guys.  From Murrah’s snarling guitar and vocals on the opening track, all the way through to the last note the whole album just howls and demands that you listen more.  This is music that reaches out and grabs you by the balls, puts a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other, punches you in the face and says “Drink mutherfucker!”  Jonathan Kim, writing on the Huffington Post put’s it best I think: “Restavrant sounds like a tornado ripping through a Texas town whose main industries are chainsaws, electronics repair, scrap metal, beer and sidewinder missiles.”  Restavrant are a band that demands to be heard. 
9 out of 10
Near perfect

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