If you’ve ever wondered what a blend of American country and British punk would sound like, your search is over. Westside Cowboy’s “britainicana” is exactly what you need to hear. The very young Manchester-based band has just released its debut album, It Goes On, and they define themselves perfectly from the very first track. Kick Stones (The Boys) is the Song of the Day.
The guitar textures that open the song instantly recall the opener on The Velvet Underground’s first album, while the vocalist’s spontaneity and the homey or even ramshackle tone of the production bring to mind bands like Pavement or Violent Femmes. Kick Stones (The Boys), however, is pure Westside Cowboy.
Reuben Haycocks, James Bradbury, Aoife Anson O’Connell and Paddy Murphy craft, on what was also the LP’s first single, a track that rises and falls in a frantic rhythm. Before the entire band comes in, Haycocks and Murphy sing about a “rain that sounds like bells” and about some surrealists “cars covered in plastic swim just fine.”
The song evolves like rapid hills you hop onto and can’t get off, passing through a valley where the same line begins to repeat (“Have you heard the boys have gone this time?”) before the tempo ratchets up, making you feel you’re part of the chants in a stadium. That, precisely, is the theme they’ve chosen for the video accompanying the track. Although their influences are mainly American, they don’t forget where they come from.
