The Beat Surrender

You have to take your hat off to Hayseed Dixie for making a real niche career for themselves, Killer Grass is the groups eighth album to date and they’ve gone for a concept of all tracks focusing on killing and death.

The second disc here is a dvd that features tutorial videos, such as how to play the banjo and how to hide a body! It also contains multi-track audio files that users can mix and remix in various computer software programmes.

As for the main event, the album itself, it’s same old same old from Hayseed Dixie, six covers of which a couple really are pointless re-interpretations (Mozart and The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again) and a number of originals that suggest they would be advised to concentrate on tyhis side of their music moving forward.

The lead singer has a good voice and they are clever in the construction of their songs, particularly on the impressive Underneath The Bed and In The Backyard. If they can build on this and leave the covers behind them they could find themselves beiong taken a lot more seriously than even they would like to be!