Black Crabs - 13 Times (Ravenous Records)

by Brent Cole (What’s Up Magazine - January 2009)

With their latest release, 13 Times, Seattle’s Black Crabs (which features Bellingham’s Tom Forster of The Foot Stompin’ Trio/Sweetheart of the Rodeo on drums) continue with their old school rockabilly romp. Overall, the disc is your standard fare rockabilly, lots of reverb guitar, stand up bass and swing drums. Nothing too fancy, so fans of the genre will enjoy it, especially if heard on a loose summer day.

The highlight of the disc is the band’s rock solid musicianship, it’s incredibly crisp and determined. But while the disc hums along at a swinging clip, it’s the lack of power and passion that slow it down. It’s missing that fire – a Jerry Lee Lewis type of energy – and it shows. The songs are great, the structures work well and guitar licks are dead on – but there’s no “umph” to it. It falls flat, which is unfortunate for any band, but especially for rockabilly – there’s so little being added to the genre musically, it’s the way the songs are played the determines the overall strength of a recording. And with 13 Times, the songs aren’t played with fire, leaving the recording flat.

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