The opening track ("Reuben") of The Jelly Rollers
evokes a specific mental image: what you see through the door if you've
ever ridden in an open boxcar. This mood pervades the entire album, even
when freight trains aren't explicitly mentioned (as they are in "Reno
Factory"), and even when the music veers off toward some other sound, as
it does with a rock-out rendition of Taj Mahal's "Jelly Roll," laid over a
tight shuffle base, or Willie Dixon's "Pretty Thing," which sounds sorta
punk-folk here (there is such a thing, oddly enough). There are some less
unexpected things as well, such as a cover of the Leadbelly classic "Keep
Your Hands Off Her," or closing track "Spectre Blues," which ends things
on a quiet, relaxed note, evocative in a manner similar to how they begin.
Overall, this is a very solid album, by a group that unassumingly sets out
to get at some of the bedrock notions of the blues, and succeeds.
-- Originally appeared in Bluesletter Vol.
13 No. 8, August 2001, p. 8