King Tony and the Witch Hunters - Truck Stomp!

King Tony is none other than the mastermind behind great bands like the Grey Spikes, the Bell Rays and the Black Widows (among others), Tony Fate, and he made good use of his time during the pandemic and released not one, but two, instrumental CDs! This one is country based - one of Tony's many musical loves - in the old school, traditional sense, but he can't help but put his own twists'n'turns on the theme, with hints of surf, garage, soundtracks and other influences.

Starting things off with "Mother Trucker", Tony cops some riffs/melodies from famous songs while incorporating them into a hip country bopper while "Hot Heap" is pure honky tonkin', and "Gear City" has some tough, hot roddin', Link Wray-in' riffs. There's some surf in the country for "Time Will Tell" which also incorporates some cool fuzzy slide, "Black Road" is a fast-paced melodic tune with a bit of organ in the background for added texture, "Hightailin'" is a homage to Jerry Reed (at least in my mind) with very hip dual harmony guitar leads, "Dirty Wheels" gives ya all the low-end, tremelo'd country riffs you could ask for, "13 Balls of Power" has a cool'n'hard-edged instrumental call'n'answer, "Hell on the Highway" has more of a swing/soundtrack groove, then things really rev up for the frantic riffin' of "Truck Drivin' S.O.B.". "Knights of the Red Eye" is a country-ish Link Wray-styled, power-chord number (with some more subtle organ), then back to pretty darn sweet'n'pure country for the title cut, followed by a Tex-Mex-ish tune, "Seniorita XL" before culminating in "Ugly Palace", which is less country and more atmospheric, in a Link Wray kinda way!

Tony keeps all of the tunes short'n'sweet, as a good instrumental should, and keeps them all interesting, creative and original. On this CD he is aided'n'abetted by Earl Smith on guitar, Rubo Eliaz on bass and Max Fargo on drums - unless those are all aliases for the man himself, which is always possible! Tony has too many influences for anything to sound overtly traditional, but for those with an open mind about their music, this is more terrific stuff from Mr. Fate!