You know, every so often a group comes out, got a catchy but indeterminable title, off the wall cover art and some strangely alluring illustrative concepts and the music could just suck for all you care, you've gotta see what this is about. Five Horse Johnson in fact doesn't suck; they hit the mark more often than not with their safety assured lazy style of heavy-handed rebel Rock raging slab and tire tracks across your back. Content's pretty strong, ranging from early seventies' Hard Rock with "Shine Around" being the one that comes to mind immediately and the first major contribution of an organ and Doobie Brothers chorus. Yes, there's quite a lot going on here having more to do with sinking a few of the double-X rather than hitting the peace pipe.

"It Ain't Easy" rings familiar of those big jam band epics from the day while at the same time you're thinking of Jackyl. These dudes have already shared the stage with some big time names -- Johnny Winter, Skynyrd, Bad Company. I'm still trying to figure out how they pulled off the gig with Cheap Trick or Deep Purple... hmm, very unusual.

"Lollipop," and "Swallow The World" are two of the album's best nearing the end where in my opinion the latter should've closed the doors since "Buzzard Luck" is just a little too much wheat in the whisky for my tastes and "Odella" is a heavily-fed slow torture that's capped off many an album of this nature and slagged its many brethren that came before.

Overall, I say buy the record for the pictures, the cool name which I figure must have something to do with some variation of poker, a cattle rustler, or the corner saloon where the good folks shown on the back are having a grand ole time. and the music's not bad either.