★★★★★
With a title like Believe, you'd think Th' Legendary Shack-Shakers have a specific something to believe in. And yet, the album's cover displays a mishmash of Christian or Muslim hands clasped in prayer, an upside-down star with funky characters on it, palmistry lines on the creepy hand, astrological symbols, crosses, some sort of masonic/Egyptian eye, devil horns, and the sun and moon. What's all that supposed to mean...
- pitchfork.com
2010-09-11
★★★★★
There are blues albums that reflect the deep reverence the performers have for the music and its rich varied history, without compromise...this is NOT one of those albums. Oh, these Legendary Shack*Shakers clearly have the "feel" for the blues (esp. Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson) ? also for jug-band/old-timey (think Memphis Jug Band, Dan Hicks), deep-South rockabilly and what used to be called "hillbilly" music...
- www.jazzreview.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
Agridustrial is authentic mechanical rockabilly grit. The Shakers recorded and interlaced anvils, hammers and other soul-crushing apparatuses with newly-added Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison's black-hearted ax-lines. Vocalist J.D. Wilkes screeches of souls starving, barns blazing and leaders reigning over their lemmings with a "Dixie-Iron Fist." "Melungeon Melody" is all factory spit and springs...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2010-05-21
★★★★★
Take all of the rockabilly bands that are out there today -- and there are a lot of them -- and throw them into a river. Most are gonna sink straight to the bottom, because they're filled with nothing but garbage. A precious few will float to the surface, inflated with the air of inspiration. One of these bands will be Nashville's Th' Legendary Shack Shakers...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers are a live act possessed. Frontman J.D. Wilkes is slight and chicken-necked, nerdy at first glance. By the end of a set, he's a spooked-out, writhing spider. He strangles each song and wheezes harmonica breaks in between the verses. The rest of the band is just as surly. Their music is loose and twangy, but so frenzied that "roots rock" is too tame a label. These guys are downright scary...
- dustedmagazine.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Mad Red Bulgarian Wannabes of the Appalachians ("Somethin' in the Water," "No Such Thing").
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-06-06
★★★★★
When Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers debuted on Bloodshot Records in 2003 with Cockadoodledon't, perfervid frontman J.D. Wilkes openly expressed disdain for alt-country and its musical carpetbaggers. Unsurprisingly, the Shack*Shakers' stay at Bloodshot, which popularized that sound, didn't last beyond Cockadoodledon't. Wilkesa native Kentuckianalso wanted to explore different styles.
Wilkes' ideas have come to fruition on the aptly named Pandeliriuman album heavily influenced by gypsy, klezm...
- www.avclub.com
2009-03-21
★★★★★
Like a devil-horned rooster spitting fire from atop a decrepit barn, Th' Legendary Shack Shakers exult with hellacious abandon. Baptized in flames, they sermonize like barkers in the great cowpunk carnival of the netherworld. They proudly declare themselves "Southern by the grace of Goth", and use Frankensteinian adjectives like "Penta-caustic" and "agri-industrial" to label their Bible belt pandemonium. In other words, Th' Legendary Shack Shakers are badasses of the highest order...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-20
★★★★★
This ain't your momma's Nashville, and it definitely ain't your kid brother's self-conscious alt-country cryfest. If you can get past the unnecessarily inane album title and smother your preconceptions, Cockadoodledon't will smack you upside the head, kick you in the shins and leave your eardrums smoking in a hail of sonic gunfire...
- www.splendidezine.com
2009-02-26
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