Sunday Run Me Over is the second album released in 2012 by Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, following early spring's Long Distance, a collection of her older garage rock material re-recorded in a distinctly more Americana/honky tonk style. Long the queen of the garage,
Holly Golightly's work with her strange partner "Lawyer Dave" acting as the entirety of the Brokeoffs has seen the punk energy that brimmed over in scrappy solo albums (or even more so with work in the early femme-stomp of Thee Headcoatees) shift somewhat into a country-tinged sound, possibly a product of her new environment, as Ms.
Golightly left her London home for life on the farm in rural Georgia with Lawyer Dave sometime in the late 2000s. The photo of ducks, dogs, and chickens in the artists' backyard that graces the inside cover of
Sunday Run Me Over is a far cry from the gritty dive-bar settings imaginable as the backdrop for
Golightly's early solo material, and likewise the music is removed from that early garage grit. The fifth album from the duo finds them working in the country-blues mode they've been cultivating for a while, but with more energy and manic gusto than before. Starting off with the down-home holler of "Goddamn Holy Roll," overdriven slide guitars and tambourines right out of Sunday morning church service explode out of the speakers, with
Holly and Dave in a wild-eyed duet for the entire duration of this spirited stomper. Tones of deep South religion, retribution, and redemption feel buried throughout the record, with humid originals like the rocking "Tank" and the goofy saloon singalong of "One for the Road" butting up against traditional country arrangements of old-timey hits like "I Forgot More" and the
Stonesy "Hard to Be Humble." The album's down-on-the-farm or confessin'-on-the-pulpit vibes have enough rock & roll in them to keep
Sunday Run Me Over in the same boozy, reckless mode of rock that
Golightly is famous for, just reconfigured a little bit. The bitterness and spite that tempered the good times rolling on albums like
Truly She Is None Other and
Serial Girlfriend are still alive and well on tracks like "Goodnight," even if sung with a bit more of a drawl than a British accent. All told, the album is a riveting romp of country-fried garage rock recorded on an actual farm. Fans of
Golightly's earliest work might miss the garage days, but listening closely will reveal that the spirit of those days is alive and very much kicking. ~ Fred Thomas