Shoplifting 4 Jesus - Alabama 3 Album Review

Alabama 3

Album Review

"If you do it in the name of the Lord, you can get away with murder". These are the thoughts of Chairman Larry Love, espousing the standard Alabama 3 blueprint of religion and lawlessness whose lyrical themes once more run like blood in the wire of this their eighth or ninth studio album. I doubt anyone in this musical band of gypsies and pirates, most of whom seem to share Larry's surname and a prodigious appetite for industrial strength drink and narcotics, would know for sure. Since their inception in the mid-nineties this wild bunch of musical vagabonds have blazed a fairly relentless if equally haphazard trail of recording, touring and self-destruction, criss-crossing countries and pillaging whatever country, blues, gospel, acid house, techno and good old rock 'n' roll music happened to get in their way.

When Tony Soprano tuned into their "Woke up This Morning" on the radio of his Cadillac Escalade ESV, Alabama 3's strange infectious brew finally hit pay dirt. It may well have been as a direct consequence of this success, but most everything else they have touched since has not turned to gold and "Shoplifting 4 Jesus" sadly does little or nothing to reverse this downward trajectory. The usual country acid house suspects can all still be found here, but now they are joined by elements of electronica, hip-hop, reggae and a sampled cast of thousands from Ray Winstone's dark biblical reading at the album's outset to a mercurial blast of Lemmy from "Ace of Spades". But despite these fresher infusions and the use of last year's London riots as the album's thematic inspiration, the old Alabama 3 formula is now beginning to sound decidedly torn and frayed.

Occasionally that old black Alabama 3 magic shines through. The Very Reverend D. Wayne Love's hilariously hallucinogenic discourse on bug infestations invites us all to "Let's Get Out 2Nite". Larry's then decides to put on his Sunday best Pentecostal croaked country croon before the gospel singers join him in taking the melody higher and higher. Lieber and Wheeler's "Jackson" finally punches holes in the song's rhythm before it explodes in a pyrotechnic shower of electronics, brass and rap. We are indeed, albeit momentarily, sucking on the end of the song's .45. And whilst the spiritual essence of the closing "Abide With Me" still moves, Larry Love's voice suddenly starts to sound very tired indeed. Perhaps he got it right to start with. After all, he did do it in the name of the Lord and maybe it was, in fact, murder.

Simon Godley