Walter Clevenger & The Dairy Kings – Around The Corner
Though California band Walter Clevenger & the Dairy Kings haven’t had a full-length album out since 1999’s Love Songs To Myself, they hope to release three discs in 2003. Around The Corner, an eight-song EP, gets the ball rolling.
The disc opens with three tracks from Full-Tilt Swing, the follow-up to Love Songs that became temporarily homeless when the band’s label, Permanent Press, bit the dust. “Stronger Than That” incorporates harmonica, organ and pedal steel to lovely effect. The clever live favorite “Supermarket Checkout Queen” features Danny Ott of Chris Gaffney’s Cold Hard Facts providing some marvelously biting guitar work (Gaffney himself appears on “Happy To Be Sad”). “Radio Sea” is sing-along power pop at its best.
Also featured are songs from the upcoming The Country Album and Trials And Tribute-lations. The instantly memorable “I Can’t Think (When I’m Thinking About Her)” and the aforementioned “Happy To Be Sad” don’t sound like the work of a band just dabbling in country; Clevenger and company pull off the songs so convincingly that it suggests Merle Haggard has the Dairy Kings on his speed-dial.