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 Caught in the Carousel - Music Reviews and More
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The Heise Brothers
III. The Return of...
Choose To Lose Records
The Heise Bros. are The Kinks meet The Heartbreakers, indie-mod Americana returning to the barn dance with a Bible in one hand and a Winston in the other. When you hear "Praise Jesus" you might be tempted to zing this into the Christian Country Rock bin, but you'd be short-changing the band. Sure, the CD is filled with thematic material you might see at any Cornerstone Festival, but so is Neil Young's Chrome Dreams II and The Return of the Heise Bros. is consistently better.
Label it Christian music or not, but absent from The Return of... is the bland, shiny-sparkly, My Little Pony nonsense that drove you from Sunday School in the first place, balanced by good, crunchy music with lyrics that don't spit after saying "blessing," and where "God" is a character instead of a curse.
Outstanding tracks include the pulse-driving "Call My Shoulder Your Home," the early- Who-sounding "Swing Kids," the laugh-out-loud campy humor of "Praise Jesus," and the wistful "Emeralds in Her Eyes."
There are eleven stories on The Return of the Heise Brothers. Take what you want, and leave behind the rest.
—Lyn Dunagan
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