The Beauty Shop - A Desperate Cry For Help (Snapper)
UK release date: 24 October 2005
Easily the funniest song you'll hear in quite some time. Not really; The Beauty Shop deal in a fine line of country folk, which, as is the way with some country-tinged music, has its fair share of melancholy.
A Desperate Cry For Help far from desperate. It is a well crafted and perfectly executed song. Admittedly, we're not talking ho-down stuff here, but that is probably just as well - ho-downs are dumb, and The Beauty Shop main man Josh Hoeffleur is far from dumb. His lyrics are insightful, witty and well observed. His voice has a gruff indifference that means his words hit their target with a strange, pointed kind of apathy. Comparisons will undoubtedly be made with Johnny Cash, but in truth Hoeffleur's tenacity with an acerbic lyric put him alongside the likes of The Handsome Family, who can delight and disturb within a single line.
Countrified cynicism should all add up to being a rather heavy listening experience, but The Beauty Shop are, paradoxically, an absolute pleasure. Anyone who can come up with the line; "All the friends I used to know, went and formed a hate club" is okay with us. If this single is anything to go by, then his albums will certainly be worth a look.
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