The second album by Kevin Naquin & the Ossun Playboys was originally self-released in 2001 in a fairly small initial pressing that sold out shortly after the album won the 2002 Cajun French Music Association award for album of the year. When Swallow Records signed
Naquin and band in 2004, they reissued
Au Coup d'Eclair (At the Strike of Lightning) alongside the group's fourth album,
Never Satisfied: Jamais Satisfait, and the juxtaposition reveals how much the Ossun Playboys' sound has changed in a relatively short time.
Au Coup d'Eclair (At the Strike of Lightning) is a much more traditional-sounding album than the later effort, leaning toward zydeco instead of swamp pop influences, and with a much less prominent rhythm section. The song selection consists almost entirely of those two staples of the Cajun repertoire, the waltz and the two-step, with the exception of one straight-ahead cover of the
Chuck Berry classic "Promised Land." Highlights include a sprightly version of the
Clifton Chenier classic "Tante Na Na" and a sweet instrumental, "Lovers Waltz." ~ Stewart Mason