The Iguanas
Plastic Silver 9 Volt Heart
Yep Roc Records
visit the band's website
also available on amazon
This has to be one of the smoothest and most sensual albums to come along in ages, all the while it is bubbling along with an intensity that just makes you want to get up and dance. This New Orleans based group has packed 14 songs onto this disc and it is filled with their familiar blending of Tex-Mex, R & B, and Rock. This line up which has been together 10 years consists of Rod Hodges (vocals, guitars and accordion), Joe Cabral (vocals, saxophone and bajo quinto), Rene Coman (bass), Doug Garrison (drums), and Derek Huston, (saxophone). They infuse their music with that dusky evocative feel of a New Orleans spring evening, with the scent of the magnolias heavy in the air, that lures the sounds that get carried on Gulf winds from Latin America and all over the Caribbean into their home port.
This melding is what gives the music that extrinsic, intoxicating and writhing groove that brings out the sensuality that cooks to the surface. This is at first listen a low key disc, but stop and feel the ethereal Mexican Candy, or the emotion of the Rod Hodges/Dave Alvin 9 Volt Heart, and then feel the sexuality of Sugar Cane, and see if you still feel it is low key. This is my pick so far for record of the year.