ANGRY JOHNNY & THE KILLBILLIES

"HANKENSTEIN"
1. Life Love Death and The Meter Man
2. Mr Undertaker
3. 202
4. Jesus, Please Come On Down
5. Prison Walls
6. Chainsaw Charlie
7. Poor Little Raccoon
8. Brand New Girl

9. Whiskey
10. Jawbone
11. Meet My Maker
12. Racing The Train
13. The Creep
14. Big Bang
15. Drag Racing The Devil

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Originally released in 1996 on Tar Hut Records, this is the album that introduced the world to Angry Johnny & The Killbillies, America's greatest BLOODGRASS band!

STEREO REVIEW 1997
LOVE-SICKO BLUES
Calling all stalkers, serial killers, and fans of the musically different: Have I got a record for you! From its cover drawing of a disintered stitched-up Hank Williams to its rude, crude subject matter and delivery. Angry Johnny and The Killbillies' "Hankenstein" is not your basic country-punk effort. A sort of theme album, it explores every self-destructive, sadistic, and masochistic act and thought, all because of one tragic event: Johnny's girlfriend dumped him. And yes, he's angry. So angry that in the opening song, Life,Love, Death and the Meter Man, he slices and dices the guy from the electric company, mistaking him for his ex's new lover. Wether you consider this parody (and I'm assured that Johnny is the real deal, that all this comes straight from his twisted heart) or just stuff designed to make Jesse Helms fall to his knees, it's well done. Written with humor aand aplomb, the material staggers between country, blues, and garage rock. It;ll sure hold your attention. And it's got the best chainsaw effects of any record in recent memory. A.N.

MAGNET, July/August 1997
Legend has it that at one Angry Johnny gig, during a song's pause, a befuddled concert goer remarked, "He really is angry, isn't he?" However, thanks to the cover painting of Hank Williams crossed with Frankenstein (Hankenstein - get it?) and a generally scary-on-the-surface demeanor, Angry Johnny and the boys have occasionally been branded as something of a novelty act. I don't buy it; Angry storytelling, often painfully told in a Waits-esque croak, is way too vivid to be so cavalierly dismissed. Has he really lived tales such as "Life, Love, Death and the Meter Man" ("so he fired up that chainsaw and he laid that sucker low") and "Brand New Girl" ("I'm gonna skin you alive/And make a suit of your hide")? Certainly not, but his heartfelt brand of traditional country/inspirational rock surely rings true. Hankenstein may not be everyone's plate of roadkill, but if you listen to it and see this band play, you shouldn't be scared shitless so much as bowled over by Angry's integrity and intensity. If not, perhaps he's got a chainsaw with your name on it. -- Matt Hickey

OPTION, January-February 1997
ANGRY JOHNNY & THE KILLBILLIES "Hankenstein"
The caricature on the front cover depicts a big-Stetsoned, rotting-green, stitched-up Hand Sr.; talk about wearing one's influences on the sleeve. Although the less said of the grotesque, lawsuit-beckoning inside photo (let's just say it would make Ed Gein proud) the better. So if you'll be expecting a sleazy, hoisting-many-pitchers, roots-rock twang and drang set, you'll be rewarded. This Boston combo kicks things off with a tender tale of chainsaw dismemberment on the Pogues-like "Life, Love, Death And The Meter Man." From there they take you through yet more tales of life (a catchy harmonica-fed pop sing-along called "Racing The Train" that brings to mind the Jacobites), love ( a Social Distortionesque "Big Bang", death (the hair-raising acoustic rocker "Mr. Undertaker") and more dismemberment ("Brand New Girl," bearing sweet lyrics like "I'm gonna skin you alive and make a suit out of your hide"). The final track is the kind of thing Charlie Daniels would've written if he'd grown up listening to the Gun Club instead of Bill Monroe: "Drag Racing The Devil," with its Eldorado-versus-VW Microbus soul-duel motif, fuzz guitars and train-a-comin' beat, is just about perfect. -- Fred Mills