Surfdog Records Ada
2006
13
About This Album
Throughout his career, Brian Setzer has successfully led two bands that have explored, and expanded upon, specific areas of pre-'60s American music: the Stray Cats virtually created the rockabilly revival of the '80s and the Brian Setzer Orchestra mined and updated the big band swing and jump-boogie of the '40s. In both contexts, the prescient Setzer proved a winner, an inspired and knowledgeable craftsman armed with truckloads of sizzling, pinpointed guitar licks and terrific songs. On occasion he's chosen, with mixed results, to break out of those molds and piece together solo albums that extend his reach into more mainstream, albeit still retro-based areas of rock. His first, 1986's The Knife Feels Like Justice, was a left-field surprise that seemed to indicate that Setzer was primed to abandon, at least partially, his obsession with the past and to try his luck in the modern rock world. That didn't quite happen, as he returned repeatedly to the more familiar territory, but on 13 -- so named because it's his 13th studio album of new material -- Setzer once again branches out, and this time he's got the balance just right. 13 is stocked with 13 (of course) diverse tracks gliding easily from straight-ahead rock & roll (among the best: "Rocket Cathedrals," "Broken Down Piece of Junk" and the anthemic "We Are the Marauders," which declares that "American Idol is a bunch of crap") to slick instrumental blues ("Mini Bar Blues").
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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