The debut by
folk-influenced college rockers
the JudyBats, 1991's
Native Son, is an extremely uneven record. The high points are quite high indeed, but there's an awful lot of filler too. Conveniently, however, the good stuff and the not-so-good is segregated from one another, with the six best songs appearing at the front of the album and the B-squad material relegated to the second half. The peaks include the soaring title track and the sunny
"Daylight," both songs powered by
Johnny Sughrue's driving acoustic guitar, the group's secret weapon through most of their albums. The other pair of gems are the atypical
"Don't Drop the Baby," an almost
psychedelic slice of college radio-style spookiness, and a terrific cover of
Roky Erickson's
"She Lives (In a Time of Her Own)" that had first appeared on
Sire's terrific
Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye tribute.
The JudyBats, save for bassist
Timothy Stutz, had never even heard of
Erickson when their label demanded they record this track, but keyboardist/violinist
Peggy Hambright turns in her best performance on the album. After that high point and the fine
"Incognito," the album drifts off into catatonia with a stretch of vague and basically uninteresting
folk-influenced
pop songs, but the first 21 minutes of this album make up for missteps like the pretentious
"The Wanted Man." Native Son is a flawed but basically worthwhile release, but its follow-up, 1992's
Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes Grow, would build on its strengths. ~ Stewart Mason
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