★★★★★
I have to admit I'm a sucker for good PR, so when a CD turns up on my doorstep labeled Appalachian Black Sabbath, I was hooked. All it took were about three songs of this, Split Lip Rayfield's third release, and I was reeled in and bagged, my throat ready to be slit open as long as the music kept playing. First point of audacity - the great chorus of track one, that rhymes "never will forgive you" with "movin' to Virginia...
- www.adequacy.net
2009-07-21
★★★★★
"Outlaw bluegrass" is the working description for these speedy banjos and doom-and-gloom lyrics from Kansas, but the telling detail on the Wichita quartet's third album comes during "Kiss of Death." The title refers not to a pact with the devil, as you might expect, but a humorous domestic dispute with automobiles everywhere: "Even though Rush sounded good on the stereo, I had killed that car," laments singer-banjoist Eric Mardis...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
A punky mixture of bluegrass, country and backwoods mischief, this quartet
sings about the good stuff, bad luck, tough drinkin' 'n' dogs, yet plays
like they've drank a bunch of moonshine and need to hightail through their
tunes at 100mph...
- www.splendidezine.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
There ain't few things gooder'n Split Lip Rayfield. Well, there's the time
me an' my pal Franklin stole his uncle's truck. That was nuts. Listenin' to
the Rayfield while we drived down the 220 was pretty good. Them Rayfield
boys is Kansas types, but they sure as tarnation sound like my buddy's
kick-ass barn-burnin' band that plays all them parties. With a gas tank
player 'n' a banjer 'n' a guy hollerin' like he's lost in a field o'
wheat, this here's the ginuwine number...
- www.splendidezine.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
It's kind of weird. We usually like our country dark and slow and lugubrious and miserable. And SLOW. But Split Lip Rayfield are one of the few bands who are a full on, rollicking bluegrass outfit, that kick ass and still hit the spot. Fierce and furious, these guys are all wicked players, insane fiddling, blazing banjo-ing and manic mandolining mesh into wild and wooly footstomping knee slapping old school bluegrass...
- www.aquariusrecords.org
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Split Lip Rayfield doesn't necessarily lambaste bluegrass; instead, think of the band as a group of mischievous older brothers that turn conventions on their heads and give them a twirl. Like a tickle attack that leaves the victim punished and helpless. A strong chance of scarring, but no permanent damage. If Split Lip Rayfield is a bully, though, it's a well-educated bully: its quartet of quick pickers is just as skilled in traditions as it is in perverting them...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-21
★★★★★
Split Lip Rayfield doesn't necessarily lambaste bluegrass; instead, think of the band as a group of mischievous older brothers that turn conventions on their heads and give them a twirl. Like a tickle attack that leaves the victim punished and helpless. A strong chance of scarring, but no permanent damage. If Split Lip Rayfield is a bully, though, it's a well-educated bully: its quartet of quick pickers is just as skilled in traditions as it is in perverting them...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-20
★★★★★
It's kind of weird. We usually like our country dark and slow and lugubrious and miserable. And SLOW. But Split Lip Rayfield are one of the few bands who are a full on, rollicking bluegrass outfit, that kick ass and still hit the spot. Fierce and furious, these guys are all wicked players, insane fiddling, blazing banjo-ing and manic mandolining mesh into wild and wooly footstomping knee slapping old school bluegrass...
- www.aquariusrecords.org
2008-11-12
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