The Reverend Horton Heat is one of rock's finest performers and showmen. He and his band are truly impressive, and, trust me, if you haven't seen the Rev live, you haven't lived. What I really love about the band, however, is their ability to capture that energy of the live performances and pressing them onto their CDs. The Reverend's albums have become cleaner and more refined as time goes by, but the energy is still there.

Lucky 7 is probably the band's best since the 1994's near-perfect Liquor In The Front, which was one of the theme album for my drunken college experience. Over the last several years, the good Reverend has toned down the psycho from his psycho-billy act, and replaced the punk sounds with solid rock-a-billy and honky-tonk, which has produced several decent to good albums, but nothing truly outstanding. His last album Spend A Night In The Box was technically outstanding, but, aside from the title track, it completely failed to hook me.

The new album has all the technical excellence of the last, and much of the same sounds. Where it differs, is in the quality of the songs, which are excellent and classic Reverend. All the songs are good, but a few stand out. The album begins with Loco Gringos Like A Party, an anthem for the kind of drunken debauchery we all try to so very hard to take part in. It ends with an epic ode to the Rev's bassist Jimbo Wallace in the full on gospel You've Got A Friend In Jimbo (he's got a six pack of goodwill and joy to share). Hallelujah. My favorite, though, is the catchy Galaxy 500, a car and woman song which harkens back to the old RHH albums of the early 90's and has quickly become one of my favorite Rev songs ever.

If you're not all that familiar with the Reverend 's good word (you poor bastard), Lucky 7 isn't a bad place to jump in. If you're already a member of the congregation, well, you should get the damn album already.

*note*
It looks like I'll be a part of Eric Olsen's Blogcritics project, so these reviews things will probably be more common than I previously thought.