Trouble Walkers – "Free Cowboy Hat"

(Sorry Ass Records)

The band will play Aug. 20 at Snug Harbor. 10 p.m. $5.

If you like your country-punk coated in a layer of dirt and packing an anti-p.c. sense of humor, this Charlotte outfit delivers with odes to booze and broads (including strippers, jailbait, roller girls and white trash). With driving barroom trucker rock, the foursome who tweaked its schtick under the moniker Hot Rod Grease Lightning often sound like defunct goth-punks Murder City Devils in a bloody dive bar brawl with the alt-country Drive-By Truckers. Vocalists Daylon Brumfield and Gabe Hinceman combine the gnarly baritone of Misfits-era Glenn Danzig with the matter-of-fact delivery of Johnny Cash – all with the twang turned to 11. But once you cut through Trouble Walkers' need to offend, there's a lot of smart and funny storytelling embedded in over-the-top tales of cocaine and sex. Hinceman's "The Man That I Can't Be" shows an intimate, serious side.

Courtney Devores - Charlotte Observer