In this house, we believe the '70s were a time when people still had style. In this house, we also believe that the '70s produced some of history's greatest and longest-lasting songs. In this house, we believe a man's merit is inversely measured by the ratio of the length of his mustache and the length of the sleeves on his workshirt. In this house, we believe that Rock 'n Roll will never die. In this house, we believe that Baseball is, in fact, America's greatest pastime (and an excellent excuse to get bombed before 2 in the afternoon on a weekday). You may recall that it was common for Americans, once upon a time, to display their sincerest beliefs in the form of proclamatory placards prominently placed on their lawns. I am never one for following trends, but Indiana's The Cowboys have inspired me to step outside my independence streak and share some of the gems plucked from my own philosophical treasure chest. If you want to know what I think keeps this country great: it's brews, beards, bad-ass guitars, and huge, pendulous (base)balls. All kidding aside, I am heartened to hear the genuine and pretensless nature of The Cowboy's sixth LP Sultan of Squat, a kind of tribute to a distant era of sound that revels in its trash as well as its triumphs. In songwriting terms as well as style and content, the group performs in the pocket of low-glimmer glam and garage flare, which reflects the blunted twinkle and grounded rumble of post-psychedelic power-pop, a combination of sounds that was endemic to like a three-year period before punk took over as the standard bearer of any ramshackle, rowdy, and left-of-the-dial rock formation. The album presents a digest of portraits, neatly drawn depictions of people living their lives, unassuming of their ends, existing in the moment and largely unaware of the calamity dangling over their heads like a glinting blade. The opener and title track is emblematic of the mix of style and substance, offering a ragtime jaunt and bobbing blunder-hop, where baseball metaphors and cribbed passages from "The Star-Spangled Banner" wrap around each other like the ends of an old rubber hose around a bicep, or the binds of a nose, to depict the downfall of a hometown hero, devoured by the dragon of addiction. Elsewhere, hearts break in-twine on the twanging bend and bane of "She's Not Your Baby Anymore," after which you're invited on a rolling tour of harmonic grandeur that greets you in unassumingly somber tones on "Goetta Fest Calamity Song," a little later the band bears underground and unearths a semblance of the rollicking rockabilly that would inspire some of the Clash's most memorable tunes on "Johnny Drives A Beater," while nearing the finish line, a Walker-esque waltz skips through operatic undertow which gift a splash of splendor to scenes cut from the dating lives of doped up office drones surviving in the digital-trenches and avoiding the death beam of HR's ever-present gaze. With Sultan of Squat, The Cowboys are able to clip through all the anxious pretext of modern music and hone in on a very specific, foundational, and damb-near-ancient styles of powerpop in such a relaxed and candid manner that it almost feels like they're reinventing (or at least reinvigorating) the genre with every distorted strum of their guitar. A serious feat when most of the originators of these sounds are either dead or in hospice. It's a testament to persistence, perseverance, and passion, as six albums into their career, The Cowboys can take something old and recast it in a new mold, while embuing it with a blazing spark equivalent to that of batter popping a fly into the floodlights above the field and showered the seats below in a rain of golden fire.
