Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If you’re going to cover a song, change it so much to the point of near brilliance and don’t give a flying monkeys if it annoys the purist.

For Hayseed Dixie, and their cousins in arms The Bad Shepherds, taking a classic Rock song and giving it new life via the injection of new blood feels like such an honest and affirming thing to do, that you do wonder why some young musicians with boundless energy and creative juices flowing overtime don’t do the same rather than having their beautiful ability shrouded by the constraints placed upon them by sticking to rigidity laid down before them.

For Hayseed Dixie though, music is about passion and that passion sees them placing new slants and speeds on much loved Rock songs; some work so well that the smile on the face cannot help but grow a little broader, and some unfortunately don’t, but no matter the end result, the music is infectious and packing more testosterone than a Grand National winner in a sword fight with King Arthur.

The latest collection of songs to get the Dixie treatment in the album Hair Down To My Grass sees the trusted formula perfectly preserved, like a fine bottle of 40 year moonshine, the listener is able to fully understand that what they imagine is most certainly what they will hear. The vapour trails of expectant glee at songs such as Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Going To Take It, Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me, Aerosmith’s outstanding Dude Looks Like A Lady and Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper, all step up to the mark and get batted out of the park like a cannon ball being smacked by well swung, reinforced 20 foot shield.

Not everything stands up to the treatment that the album asks for and it takes something tremendously outstanding to be able to cover Pink Floyd’s greatest track Comfortably Numb with any real conviction. Not that it matters in the scheme of things, especially when the four musicians more than make up for it by singing the original German lyrics of The Scorpion’s iconic song, Wind Der Veranderung, (Winds of Change).

The album moves along like a shot of adrenalin administered to the heart, tremendously exciting and full of songs that will be played over and over again. Hayseed Dixie should be seen as a band that inspires the younger generation to change they way they look at music, a song was never meant to stay in its original format, it must grow and expand to stay in shape; Hayseed Dixie more than offer that option in Hair Down To My Grass.

Ian D. Hall.