High Noon have been plying their energetic brand of rockabilly since first forming in Austin, TX, in 1989. In their 13 years together, the band has traveled around the world, appeared on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and released a number of albums. In 2002 after a four-year break, lead guitarist
Sean Mencher, vocalist
Shaun Young, and bassist
Kevin Smith returned with
What Are You Waiting For?, yet another charged-up rockabilly outing.
High Noon's success relies heavily on all three players' ability to think and play as one.
Young's acoustic guitar, for instance, does double duty by filling out the sonic palette and providing a steady rhythmic backdrop.
Smith's bass offers a steady underpinning and adds drive, while
Mencher, a heck of a guitar player, puts the icing on this rockabilly cake. He manages to turn in fresh solos song after song, bending strings, ripping off quick runs, and heading in unexpected directions. On the hopping "Let's Go Daddy-O" he delivers a solo that snakes, swirls, and twists without ever losing the momentum of the piece.
Young handles most of the vocals, adding a nice flourish to pieces like "Yard Dog" and "Hanging (From the Old Oak Tree)." Of the 15 songs on
What Are You Waiting For?, only three surpass the three-minute mark. This attests to the bouncy nature of the album and also to the fact that when individual rockabilly songs are extended too long, they become stilted.
What Are You Waiting For? will please old fans, make new fans, and give notice that rockabilly isn't just a music of yesteryear.