At least Nine Pound Hammer sounds like they'd rather be doing nothing else than mixing racist, whiskey-stomped, napalm trailer-park punk rock with the snarling drawl of a campy, hardcore rockabilly R. Crumb cartoon. Luckily, Hayseed Timebomb, their second album, doesn't budge from the template and instead relies on their comical faux aggression to produce something of hyper-real consequence. Founders Scott Luallen and Blaine Cartwright play to listeners' prejudices of the Deep South more than in The Mud, the Blood, and the Beers by amping up the exaggeration and abusiveness with the subtlety of communist propaganda. Assisted by songs like "Shotgun in a Chevy," "Run Fat Boy, Run," and quite possibly the best title in all of 1995, "Fuck Pie," however, there's a stewed authority in their humor that serves as a strangely persuasive defensive tactic. Say what you will, but while mainstream America and independent Britain were distracted elsewhere, few were brave enough to fuse Nashville Pussy, the Cramps, and BR5-49. ~ Dean Carlson