Luther Wright & The Wrongs

Tear down the wall! While their previous outing, the back porch interpretation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, was certainly a successful realisation of one of the weirdest ideas in music history, its cleverness left Wright & the Wrongs at risk of being tossed in the novelty category. In fact, the former Weeping Tile guitarist and co. are a damn good band, and take full advantage of displaying that fact here. "I like that hillbilly music, the kind you don’t hear on the radio,” Wright proclaims during "The Race To The Top” and that’s pretty much what’s offered throughout Guitar Pickin’ Martyrs. The light-hearted spirit of Rebuild The Wall is consistently maintained, but the year spent touring in support of it shows in the fiery playing of guitarist Dan Curtis and pedal steel player Olesh Maximew. On many tracks they sound as if they’re directly channelling Buck Owens’ Buckaroos, but it is Wright’s wry lyrics that are the icing on the cake. "Broken F!@# Heart,” and the title track would become instant roadhouse classics in a perfect world, although Wright shows his sensitive side with "Milk & Honey,” a duet with Sarah Harmer, and closer "The Settling Dust.” Rebuild The Wall was fun for a while, but GPM is built to last much longer.