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June 2001 Vol. 5 No. 7
 
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Artist Stone Coyotes
Title Born to Howl
Label Red Cat Records
Reviewer Joe Hartlaub
Rating
The story of the Stone Coyotes is by now the stuff of legend, how best-selling author Elmore Leonard, walked into The Troubadour in L.A., caught their set, and wrote his best-selling novel "Be Cool" around them, instantly giving the band a couple million dollars worth of instantaneous pub. BORN TO HOWL is the band's third CD and all in all it is a not unpleasant mixed bag, though, on the strength of this CD, it is hard to see what attracted Leonard to the band. That is not a knock on the band, which is certainly more competent musically than a lot of their peers who for whatever reason regularly sell megamillions of CDs at the drop of a hat. It is simply that there is nothing in their material to distinguish them from any number of bar bands with original material and trying to catch a break.

The band has the right idea. There are echoes of Neil Young, circa After the Goldrush, on "Detroit or Buffalo," and an attempt to rock up Dolly Parton's "Joline." It's just that it doesn't seem that there is a lot of emotion going on behind the technically perfectly applied power chords and Barbara Keith's half-sung, half-spoken vocals. While their lyrics drop names like Jerry Lee Lewis and Joey Ramone, their music doesn't quite reach either the spirit, letter, or energy of those artists.

What's interesting here, though, is that in spite of these deficiencies BORN TO HOWL's strengths still shine through. The band is tight, and Keith's leads are flashy if not totally original. I couldn't escape the feeling, after listening to the BORN TO HOWL over and over again, that the CD, and the band, would benefit from bringing someone in to help with the material. Their musical proficiency appears to be such that they could handle just about anything that somebody threw at 'em. What we have with BORN TO HOWL, however, is a CD that demonstrates the promise of this band without the delivery. Don't count them out, though. They have just enough strengths to be worth checking out next time around.


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© 2001 AMZ, Robert R. Lewis
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