Johnny Dowd - Cemetery Shoes (CD)

All Music Guide

Despite Johnny Dowd's fixation with death, the 56year old guitarist has inexplicable appeal on his sixth album, Cemetary Shoes. Beneath all of the bloodstained clothes is a man with superb axe prowess and Nick Cave meets Tom Waits meets Tom Verlaine vocal approach. "Brother Jim" is an offbeat, twangy rock/blues concoction that's as delightfully fun as it is peculiar, "Garden of Delight" is a blistering stomper and "Whisper In A Nag's Ear" is an eerie jazztinged offering. if the latter's chorus, "You're carrying a coffin", makes it a must for all future Halloween parties, the creepy, Crampsian white trash barnburner "Rest In Peace" is equally worthy. At times, Dowd's obsession starts to grate specifically on "Dear John Letter" where frenzied percussion uncomfortably meshes with his nightmareinducing spoken word but often enough there is magic in the midst of his morbidity.

- John D. Luerssen, All Music Guide