The Twang - A Guide To Modern Country Living (2010)

Take a song. any. It can be hard rock or pop, Schlager or disco, the main thing is that the title is well-known enough to be thrown through the country wolf beyond recognition. The cooking recipe of the pranksters from The Twang is ready. The undershirt-free version of The Boss Hoss has been making fun of so-called "countryfication" since 1997 - but also with increasing seriousness.

That's how her fourth studio album, with the meaningful title "A Guide to Modern Country Living", was created in addition to a studio in Bülten in northern Germany - you don't treat yourself to anything else - in Houston and Austin. It seems even more serious, even more ambitious, even more professional that the album was mastered in the legendary Beatles Abbey Road Studios. Who knows, maybe Klaus Voormann, who was the fifth Beatle at the time and designed the cover, let his contacts play.

So a lot of advance praise. The bar is set correspondingly high. And what are Marshall Twang and the other twangs doing? You're just walking downstairs. Super cool and relaxed, of course, without even lifting the Stetson. Iwo, don't try too hard...

This is meant to be less critical than it sounds. Because Austin, Houston, Abbey Road and Voormann or not - there can be no talk of professional smoothness or even calculation with the touching cover versions. Despite two new band members and a few guest stars, the band still sounds as fresh and cheeky and unspoilt as at their first gig. But also still so musically awkward. But her cultivated dilettantism has a system. Because with them it has always been about the surprise effect that classics from pop history in a new country guise trigger in the listener. Or at least should trigger, this approach has now become a tradition.

The implementation doesn't always provide moments of surprise either: a lot sounds as if Monty Python's crackheads would attack "Ghostriders" - not very qualified, but always bizarre and funny. Unfortunately, some things just turn out stupid: "A Whiter Shade of Pale" for example. Or "Just A Gigolo". These icons (of cuddly or party music) cannot be put into cowboy boots without resistance and thus easily transformed into country. Harmless pop songs like Michael Jackson's "Beat It" or David Dunda's anthem "Jeans On" are much more suitable for this. And "Genghis Khan" (Genghis Khan) even benefits in the twang version. A number of well-known guest stars helped with this, including country veterans Herb Remington, Marty Muse and Martin Wank (including Calexico).

Conclusion: Noble Studios, new songs, new team - and tried and tested concept. Twang fans should get their money's worth. At least everyone else is having fun.