Raise 'em High

On the country-rock continuum, Birmingham, AL-based band Caddle are located somewhere between Jason & the Scorchers and the Kentucky Headhunters. The quintet exhibits a cowpunk energy and attitude in some of its music, while mixing in bluegrass and hard country elements. But the core of their approach is more geographic than musical; this is a bar band that rarely gets out of the bar. When they sing "Raise ‘Em High," in the album's title song, they are talking about glasses, not a robbery. Identifying with blue-collar workingmen, they boast in "Work" of working 60 hours a week, a claim somewhat undercut by the admission that they get drunk every afternoon. They have a barfly's sense of humor, noting in "Raise ‘Em High" that "beer don't grow on trees" and, in "Give Me a Dollar," repeatedly singing "I'll drink about you" instead of "I'll think about you." Their perspective seems to mirror the places they play, and so does their raucous music, seemingly designed to be heard over the din of a barroom and featuring simple, oft-repeated choruses and taglines, the better to cut through the inebriation of their audiences. It all sounds like a woozy good time and, like a night at a bar, one that is hard to remember clearly afterwards.