Sugar Town, The Iguanas

Sugar Town, The Iguanas (Koch)

Listening to this New Orleans-based quintet for a couple songs can be perplexing.

On one track, they play with the raw urgency of a college radio garage band.

On the next, they’re crooning in Spanish and bounding along with Tex-Mex brio.

But take Sugar Town as a whole, and a grand musical gestalt occurs.

Somehow it all just works.

Captured kicks off the disc, lurching and clanging like a camel pulling a junk wagon.

Nice crunchy sax work and a bluesy guitar solo top it off.

A spirited Latin sound powers La Llanta Se Me Poncho and complements the pleasing vocal harmonies.

The Iguanas wander into lounge lizard territory with Love Terrifies Me, a festival of whammy chords and staccato sax.

Sprinkled liberally throughout the collection is sly humor, as on You Killed My Buzz: “Flying around in your big hairdo/Lying and cheating as swingers do.”

Fun and funky, clever and corny, Sugar Town satisfies that craving for eclectic delights.

--Heidi Johnson-Wright