The V-Roys: Big Noise from Knoxville

STEREO REVIEW - NOVEMBER 1996

THE V-ROYS:
BIG NOISE FROM KNOXVILLE

Wearing suits and ties, they look like your average fraternity brothers on Parents' Weekend. They've given their debut album a title, "Just Add Ice," that sounds like glossy cocktail music. And they're from Knoxville, Tennessee, not heretofore known as a hotbed of progressive music. But look again, because the V-Roys are something else. In fact, they're proteges of Steve Earle, who co-produced the album, and they're the first act on his new label. And what they do is write and play a style of music that you might be tempted to call rock-and-roll country grunge, a guitar-driven and distortion-loving brand of roots rock that's delivered with a pants-on-fire urgency and the occasional country (or even English) accent. If all of this makes the V-Roys the ultimate fusion band, so be it.

The opening track, Guess I Know I'm Right, blends garage rock and strains of the Beatles with guitar riffs that recall a spy-movie theme from the Sixties. What She's Found starts out as a polite Scottish bagpipe ditty but soon turns into blistering American rock. Elsewhere you'll discover Latin-tinged sex pop (Lie I Believe), a John Lennon-ish primal scream (Kick Me Around), an acoustic

feel good boogie (Cold Beer Hello), and midtempo country (Pounding Heart). There's also a hint of punk in the nervous Cry, as well as a touch of the Yardbirds in Wind Down, a rave-up built on hollered, mechanically altered vocals. the V-Roys can turn the attitude, not to mention the memorable line. In No Regrets, the most sardonic cut here, a soon-to-be-dumped girlfriend is informed that "in the time that it takes to crush this cigarett / I will forget all about you." And when the tables are turned in the bittersweet ballad Goodnight Loser, the now-forgotten boyfriend feels some very real pain of his own: "When you dance with him / I see losers win / And the losers aren't who they're supposed to be."

For birthing the V-Roys, chalk up another distinction for Knoxville - "the home," as Steve Earle notes, "of James Agee and Quentin Tarantino, and the last place anyone saw Hank Williams alive." Chances are, all three of those guys would dig the heck out of this band.

Alanna Nash

The V-roys: Just Add Ice E-Squared 1050 (38 min.)