Johnny Black and the Assassins - "Goin' to Durango"

Album review by Chris Wagner

The latest release from Johnny Black and The Assassins, "Goin' To Durango", takes a go-for-the-throat approach to grab your attention. The liner notes give you fair warning; thanking The Stooges, Social Distortion, and the MC5, JBTA take their shot at the balls-to-the-wall punk rock 'n roll (heavy on the rock) territory inhabited by their heroes. The right ingredients are all there: snarling guitar riffs, fist-pumping shout-along choruses, and pounding rhythms from straight out of the garage, and for the most part, they hit the bulls-eye. Bonus points for not overstaying their welcome; like a well-planned bank heist, JTBA are in and out in only eight songs.

The subject matter is uniformly back-alley sinister; "Durango" kick-starts the disc with a modern-day Billy the Kid story, running from the law with a loaded .45 and a full tank of gas, all the while trying to talking its way into the ladies' pants. In a similar vein, "454" pays tribute to fast cars "burnin' down the highway", choking you with tire-smoke before blinding you with chrome and getting you speed-drunk with its "Go! Go!" chorus and raunchy punk blues riffing. "Solid Matter" is about payback time; this is a song about settling scores via beat-down, about getting pushed over the edge, reaching critical mass, exploding all over someone and demolishing them.

The band also takes a page out of the Misfits/White Zombie handbook with "Boah" and "Just For You", drawing on 50's sci-fi thrillers for the former's demonic man-turned-beast on the rampage, prowling the town in search of something to defile; and slasher movies for the latter's necrophiliac lust song- the undead inviting you not to run and hide from their love from beyond the grave. The imagery pops into your head unbidden, full of damsels in distress falling out of their dresses while greasepaint-and-latex monsters give chase. It actually works, since the delivery isn't all Bela Lugosi'd out as might be expected.

Two well-chosen covers are also included. JBTA's amped-up version of Violent Femmes' "36-24-36" out-rocks the original hands down by adding unhealthy doses of adrenaline and decibels. This is the type of sound this song required from the start; Gordon Gano was never very convincing talking about wanting lots of pretty chicks in his nasal lisp, and these guys sell the line a lot better. For the rock purists, the band also take on Australian punk pioneers The Saints' "Lost And Found"; the rants against the System and mass exploitation mesh well with the whole "outlaw" theme, flipping two fingers at the Man, Yuppie-ism in all forms, and corporate brainwashing to boot. They nail the original's steam-rolling riff, too, proving how well the song holds up even 20 years later.

"Goin' To Durango" isn't without its pitfalls; the vocals jump in and out of the mix in places, and at times are overpowered by the sheer force of the guitars (a lyric sheet would have helped, too; those buzz-saw guitars sound great, but cover a lot of ground frequency-wise). Also, the band falls out of character briefly with the lackluster "Blame"- a generic pop-punker that doesn't have the meanness and punch of the other songs. Its basic premise: stop bitching about what's wrong and do something about it; "You're the reason nothing ever works for you/no one else can stand the stupid shit you do". It's an unfortunate detour from this welcome dose of aggression, but as a whole, Goin' To Durango truly kicks out the jams that need to be kicked.

--Chris Wagner