Reverend Horton Heat

As the photo on the back cover indicates, the Reverend Horton Heat spent the two years between Liquor in the Front and It's Martini Time living pretty hard. In addition to touring, the group has indulged in their boozy, campy ways a little too much, which is evident throughout It's Martini Time. Though the group sounds fine -- by this point, they could probably play their overdriven rockabilly in their sleep -- there is no spark to the record, it all sounds tired. Where the band had sounded intoxicatingly crazed in the past, songs like "Big Red Rocket of Love" and "Generation Why" have no energy, nor do they have any hooks. The Reverend Horton Heat simply sound burned out. Of course, most rockabilly bands -- especially rockabillly revivalists -- wind up sounding burned out or tired, but it's disheartening to hear the group sound so close to the end of the line so early in their career.