No Help Coming

Recording information: Camp Esco; Rar, GA.
Illustrator: Andrew John Mullen.
Photographers: Holly Golightly; Troy Martin .
After establishing herself as the leading chanteuse on the British garage punk scene through her work with Thee Headcoatees and on a number of fine solo albums, Holly Golightly's music has evolved from a distinctive blend of rock, blues, and supper club jazz into a fractured variation on traditional country music with her combo Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, a collaboration between Golightly and Texas-born multi-instrumentalist Lawyer Dave. Golightly's vocal and songwriting style, which seemed graceful on her early solo efforts, became more than a bit clumsy on her initial Brokeoffs recordings, with the country accents sounding more than a bit clichéd and hackneyed, especially from someone who showed such intuitive intelligence as she absorbed blues and jazz influences. But Golightly is clearly growing more comfortable with her hillbilly affectations, and 2011's No Help Coming finds her sounding stronger and more confident as she offers her own take on old-school country and blues sounds. There's an easy and natural blend of sorrow and determination on "The Only One" and "The Whole Day Long" that makes her sound like a defiant dust bowl refugee from a Walker Evans photograph come to life, and when she and Dave connect just right on rollicking numbers like "Get Out of My House" or the title song, they kick up plenty of dust, generating enough power to keep the lights on in the farmhouse for a week. But Lawyer Dave's solo spots are significantly less impressive and suggest the schtick-ier side of this duo's music is likely his doing, especially given his cover of Wendell Austin's weirdo country obscurity "LSD" (which, no matter what the credits on this disc may say, was not written by Wavy Gravy). No Help Coming is an improvement over Golightly's previous work with the Brokeoffs, but this music still doesn't capture this gifted artist at her best. ~ Mark Deming