Performing Songwriter Magazine 05-1-01 By Clay Steakley

READY FOR TAKEOFF Will Hoge's Carousel is muscle-car music. It's meaty, growling, and patently American. This is honest-to-god rock and roll schooled in Springsteen and Tom Petty. The point of this record isn't necessarily to break any new ground, but to allow Hoge and his band to gleefully retread the well-worn roads of American rock and to glory in the noise, the whiskey, the girls, and the sweat.Hoge's voice is throaty and agile, managing at times to sound much like Van Morrison singing Elvis Costello's melodies, and his songwriting sticks to the stylistic and lyrical parameters set by his forebears-leaving, being left, drinking, self-destruction, and girls, girls, girls. His band, a beer-fueled orgy of volume, is solid and adept, featuring former Georgia Satellite Dan Baird on guitar, and the pounding rhythm section of bass player Tres Sasser and drummer Kirk Yoquelet. Carousel is a distillation of danger and fun with an unhinged energy and entirely liberated summertime playfulness that can only be found in head-on, honest rock.