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PAIN BY NUMBERS
(Bloodshot)
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Click the "Visit the Artist’s Homepage" link at Bloodshotrecords.com and you’re taken to the Meat Purveyors’ namesake, a San Antonio company offering "Fine Meats for Hotels, Restaurants and Institutions." That confirms the impression left by TMP’s fourth studio full-length: like so many long-time Austin bands, these neo-bluegrass bohemians are in it just for the immediate pleasure of making music for themselves and their pals. So when their part-time fiddle player cut her hours, the foursome closed ranks, setting every tune to arrangements that Bill Monroe would have approved (guitar, mandolin, stand-up bass, close-harmonizing double vocals). The staidness is frustrating because chief songwriter Bill Anderson can turn a rootsy tune as startling as anything by populist-minded masters like Merle Haggard and Loretta Lynn, and frontwoman Jo Stanli Cohen has a tough yet friendly voice to match. Often the band kick it home nevertheless, as on "TMP Smackdown," a supersonic hoedown about smack. But aside from a Johnny Paycheck winner, the covers are clever only if you can ID the source (cow-punk forefathers Rank and File, avant noisemaker Boyd Rice), and several originals just leave you thinking how much fun this must be live, in a sweaty crowded room with a cold beer or three.
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