Discovery Vaults

Album review

In 2002, the Reverend Horton Heat partnered with ambitious indie label Artemis Records to release their seventh album, fittingly titled Lucky 7. By 2006, Artemis had ceased to exist, and in 2010, most of the label's catalog was purchased by an outfit called Entertainment One. eOne has since released a handful of compilations drawn from their masters under the uniform title Discovery Vaults, and they've found an ingenious way to make a Reverend Horton Heat collection out of the one disc they own on the group. For this album, they've knocked four songs off Lucky 7, changed the sequence, put it in a bland new sleeve, and voila! You get Heat's volume in the Discovery Vaults series! Lucky 7 wasn't the worst album from Jim Heath and his partners in psychobilly, but it wasn't their best, either, and it's a matter of debate if Lucky 7 is hurt or helped by the absence of four tunes. What's here is good stuff, for the most part, though "You've Got a Friend in Jimbo" and "Duel at the Two O'Clock Bell" are atypical numbers more interesting to fans than casual listeners, and the rest is stylistically familiar to anyone who knows this band: tales of cars, girls, and bad behavior scored by 100 mph guitar solos, frantic slap bass, and manic drumming. In short, Lucky 7 was a typical Reverend Horton Heat album, and Discovery Vaults is 71-percent of that typical album; since Lucky 7 is still in print, it's hard to say what purpose this "collection" is meant to serve.
© Mark Deming /TiVo