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
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