The second
Downliners Sect album has always confused the uninitiated because of its title. At the insistence of their producer,
Mike Collier, the band plays some
country music such as
"Ballad of the Hounds" and
"Wolverton Mountain," but also branches into folkier sounds on
"Hard Travellin'" (done in
country style, but known best in the early '60s as a
folk standard) and even brushes up against protest music on
"Little Play Soldiers," but the big surprise comes with
gospel numbers like
"Wait for the Light to Shine" and
"Waiting in Heaven." The group's primitive nature comes through loud and clear on the loud
Bo Diddley-based backbeat on
"I Got Mine" and most of the rest here, which not only makes a lot of it work really well but generally turns this album into yet another brilliant outing for the band, if not quite the same as the first album. Oh, and then the
country blues here -- represented by the scintillating five-minute-long
"Rock in My Bed" -- is pretty intense, especially for five white English guys, and shows some
blues chops that weren't on the debut album. [The 2005 release of the album was remastered in stunning high-resolution digital audio, which brings out the playing on the rhythm section -- as well as the resonance of the voices and the lead instruments -- with the kind of intimacy that had usually only been heard during live performances. And it's been augmented with such bonus tracks as the
Bo Diddley-ish, beat-driven rendition of
"Wreck of the Old '97," and the wonderfully comical
"Leader of the Sect," off of their 1965 EP
The Sect Sing Sick Songs]. ~ Bruce Eder
