Alabama 3 - How Can I Protect You (One Little Indian)
UK release date: 15 August 2005
Okay, so they might be from Brixton, but Alabama 3 do this techno fused country blues shit as good as any Texan could. It may be ironic in its template but it is sublime in its delivery. This offering from the forthcoming Outlaw album is not as seething and brooding as some of their older, religious nuts on La Peste, and it has gathered quite an anthemic chorus with the help of Irish rockers Aslan, but the B-side of adrenaline shows they still have the inclination and desire to write about the seedier side of life.
The success of The Sopranos may have whet their appetite for more commercial success, and while there is a slight whiff of chart hankering, they have lost none of the imagination and genre exploitation that have made them so viable to fans of so many types of music. Stick an acoustic guitar in front of them and they could play the Cambridge Folk Festival, play support for Willie Nelson's future anti-Americana tour while being equally at home playing techno to the Bristol drum'n'bass population.
Alabama 3 have always been great at opening songs and How Can I Protect You is no different - dirty beats and euphoric sound disturbances lead you into the baggie, anthemic chorus already mentioned. All the while Larry Love's voice is as unique as the smell of the dole office. Ch-ch-check it out.
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