White Trash Folklore
Overlord Records 12/22/98
The recycling of obscure 80s pop-rock is riskier than skydiving naked but Flint, the hyped Southern product, carry it off with a certain coolness. The first five songs on White Trash Folklore suggest a sound on the verge. Tapping into a maze of noise, songs like the first single “Apocalypse 2000” and “Turbans in Crawford County” seem strangely familiar but unlike anything you’ve heard before. It is reconstructed rock; creatively done. Guitarist Juwan Pilgrim, who may be the most multi-talented musician to hit popular music since Lenny Kravitz, draws heavily on The Edge’s War-era distortion while keyboard player Doug Cherokee borrows heavily from the grandeur provided by his New Wave predecessors. These thefts are not obvious and pay tribute to the music Flint grew up listening to.
The slant on WTF’s first five songs is hard-hitting and strangely focused. The next two songs, the poor-boy-loves-rich-girl themed “Karen Don’t Care” and “Seven Year Old Lawyer” are acoustic gems that reveal a Flint rarely seen in concert. Media-labelled ‘swinger-songwriter’ Cody Jackson, who is a perpetual definition of machismo, crafts a vulnerability with these two songs. Although his raw voice (think Bruce Springsteen singing bad karoake) is Flint’s weakest link, Jackson’s lyrical range is staggering. Leaning on pop-culture references, his songs can be poignant (“Karen Don’t Care”), humorous (unlisted “On The Radio Shania Played’), fiery (“Bank Robber”) and bitter (“New York City”). In a few more albums’ time, Jackson has shown the potential to carry the Voice of A Generation mantle.
It is rare to find an album that seems to have been composed in shifts. Left to the first seven songs, White Trash Folklore would rank among the all-time great EPs but it lacks the strength and endurance to rate as a classic full-length CD. After “Seven Year Old Lawyer”, Flint sounds like they are rushing to finish the album. A little unfocused, some songs like “Undeveloped” and “eXit” seems incomplete and the experimental “Morphine Dreams” is pure crap. After putting out EPs in 1992 A Little Psycho and Beaver Music of 1995, Flint would have appeared ready to take the neccesary steps required to make a stunning debut. Flint’s White Trash Folklore may cause a stir and has several outstanding tunes but we may have to wait for their second album for the boys in Flint to fulfill their own “biggest band in the world” prognostication.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ (great, not classic)
Chad Patch
New Music Review
December 1998