The Coal Dust Cowboys is the combination of three members of Stage Frite partnered up with producer extraordinaire and founder of the Sharks, Mr. Alan Wilson. This is the band’s debut album entitled Beneath the Old Slag Heap.

‘The Jolly Collier’, begins with spooky sounds and a Scottish voice, telling the legend of the Jolly Collier, before the familiar voice of Alan Wilson and the clean sound that has come to epitomise his work at Western Star kicks in. It is a splendid mix of neo-rockabilly and psychobilly with some fantastic lead guitar work.

‘Resurrection Man’ is terrific old-school psychobilly with wonderful guitar lines, nice vocals and backing vocals on the chorus. It’s a great song.

‘Waffle Stomp’ reminds me, strangely enough, of Madness mixed with the Gruffs with some Hammond organ mixed in for good measure. I’ve always been of the view that the Hammond organ ought to enjoy a place in psychobilly instrumentation.  This song features Stage Frite’s Clive Perchard on vocals and judging from the audible laughs on this one, I gather that the band had fun recording it.

‘Nuns With Guns’ has a wonderful psychobilly style intro before Clive’s husky vocals come in. There is then a great guitar solo and some terrific slapping bass. This may well be my favourite song on the album.

‘Kiss of the Darkness’ begins with a moody section with organ juxtaposed with the purity of Alan Wilson’s vocals. This is contrasted with Clive’s vocals that also adorn this song. The double bass features nicely in the mix alongside Steve’s atmospheric tom-tom work. The song began life as a writing collaboration between Alan and Mark Palmer who was the double bassist for the Western Star house band.

‘Hard Love’ is classic old school psychobilly with gang vocals on the chorus, some lovely guitar work and just a very no nonsense feel to it.

‘Porn In the Woods’ tells the story familiar to any boy growing up in the late 70s and early 80s about how to access pictures of naked ladies. It is an amusing story narrated by Mr. Perchard.

‘Three-Holed Electric Love Doll’ begins with rapid fire vocals that are rather reminiscent of ‘Too Much Monkey Business’, courtesy of Alan, it is splendid psychobilly fare.

‘You’re My World’ begins with just guitar and vocals singing the chorus before the whole band joins in on this rather jolly number that features that Hammond organ again, lending the song a subtle ska flavour.

‘Creeper Van’ is up-tempo psychobilly that sounds a little bit like early Coffin Nails, it’s great stuff.

‘I’ve Had Enough Of You’ features Clive on vocals as well as particularly nice bass slapping and lovely guitar work. This was another Wilson Palmer collaboration.

The album concludes with ‘Dead Man’s Drape’. The song has a tremendous rockin’ low-end sound. And it’s a terrific subject for a song that provides a great end to the album.

This is a splendid, fun-filled album that wonderfully captures the old-school psychobilly sounds of yesteryear. I recommend it warmly to all those positively predisposed to such charms and, indeed beyond.

Nick Kemp

Buy a copy of ‘Beneath The Old Slag Heap’ from Western Star Records here