After
the Stray Cats broke up,
Brian Setzer took a long walk from his rockabilly past with his first solo album, 1986's
The Knife Feels Like Justice, but while it was a fine LP and a modest success, later that year
the Stray Cats reunited for the first of many times to record
Rock Therapy, and by the time
Setzer made his way back to the studio on his own, he'd seemingly grown tired of his new heartland rock gestures and dove back into the retro style that had made his name. While 1988's
Live Nude Guitars leans toward rockabilly and uptempo roots rock, the production (mostly by
Setzer and Larson Paine, though
Dave Stewart and
Chris Thomas work on a few tracks) is a lot slicker than anything
the Stray Cats ever put to wax, and the big, glossy sound of "Rockability," "Red Lightning Blues," and "She Thinks I'm Trash" tends to work against the songs, and the synthesizer line and drum machine on "When the Sky Comes Tumblin' Down" are simply cringe-inducing.
Setzer does offer a few flashes of the more contemplative direction of
The Knife Feels Like Justice on "Every Tear That Falls" and "Love Is Repaid by Love Alone," but they don't work especially well in this context, and the widescreen ballad "The Rain Washed Everything Away" is an odd closer for the album.
Setzer demonstrates some typically fine guitar work on
Live Nude Guitars, but it's a creative hodgepodge that desperately needs a cleaner focus, and suggests he was in need of a new creative direction; the next time
Setzer was heard from as a solo artist, he was fronting his big band,
the Brian Setzer Orchestra. ~ Mark Deming