Andrea & Mud - Bad News Darlin' (2020)

Comprising Andrea Colburn and Kyle “Mud” Moseley, this Atlanta duo bend the knee to Junior Brown who came up with the term surf-western, lacing it with some Shovels & Rope flavoured blues for an 11-track collection that ranges from spaghetti-western vistas to beer-stained honky-tonks.

Recorded in Georgia and produced by Damon Moon, riding a steady galloping rhythm they head out to the border badlands, horns in tow, for opening track Lines, an old song about how drinks and drugs messed up a relationship (“you’re the reason why I drink each night…the lines that I have taken daily/Have only left me wanting more”) that directly quotes from The Shadows 1960 hit Apache.

Next, they make an appointment for some road bar in Birmingham, Al., 8.30 am as Moseley’s deep Cash-like tones take over for the true story of tying one on for a night that lasted well into the next morning, then it gets moodier with howling effects for Hellhounds, a twangsome clattery drums blues based around the story of how Memphis Minnie took on Muddy in a guitar competition, and she walked away the winner with a bottle of gin.

The style switches to a Bakersfield sound as they share verses on the twangy picked The Reason Why She Cries, turning to rumbling balladry, but keeping the twangs alongside the piano and horns for the old school doo-wop meets country sound of Send Your Love My Way. There’s more echoey surf guitar work bolstering Used Car Salesman’s account of a sleazeball hustler and his two-dollar whore, moving from cars to Moseley riding the roads in his Little Blue Truck as the pedal steel dances across the country tarmac white lines.

The five-minute pack your bags Leave nods to The Ventures surf music influences with a galloping rhythm straight out of Ghost Riders In The Sky then instantly switches to a honky-tonk waltz as Colborn sings I Ain’t Home with her Loretta hat on. The album winds up with another dose of surf-western on the stomp-along June and Johnny-styled Yer Majesty and, finally, the cascading guitar peals and Colborn’s echoey vocal take on Skeeter Davis classic End of the World, here with added Bull.

Diving into the retro sounds of both sixties surf and country classics, Bad news Darlin’ rides the waves and cruises the honky-tonks with consummate style and unbridled energy. Or, to borrow the vernacular, it’s a shot of surf stoked fun with a kick of lime and chilli to the lyrics that peels like an eskimo roll in a rhinestone shirt and hangs ten. Make it your bad.