The Hyphens

Its really hard to write one song that tells a straight tale. The Hyphens pull this skill off with ease; these tunes eloquently capture the endless trials of youth and love in six concise tales...Picture a corny rock track in a car ad sloppily played by Hüsker Dü or The Replacements. With the longest track clocking in under three and half minutes, there is absolutely no nonsense here to speak of. Most of the tracks read like anthems, and I will choose One Too Many Teardrops as mine. I think theres one in this CD for any guy in this town who has ever gotten drunk, dumped or both.
-Filmore Slim - The Noise

Start with some Ventures-style rumbling drums; on top of that, lay two guitars - one all fuzzy and playing power chords, the other all reverbed and twangy - combined to sound kind of like Duane Eddy on steroids; then the vocalist comes in with a clipped, throaty delivery of lyrics about violence and buyer's remorse; suddenly the whole thing transforms into a dead-on "Armed Forces"-era Elvis Costello and the Attractions imitation....and this is all just in the first song, "Turn It Up". And believe me, you will turn it up. This song is a killer. The rest of the disc is not bad, either, especially "The Hard-Wound Girl", a neo-rockabilly number with a refrain ("She makes my knees quake") that would make Gene Vincent proud...The closing "One Too Many Teardrops"...sounds like a long-lost Dion and the Belmonts track they might have retrieved from the dumpster just in the nick of time...Bottom line, as always, is the songs; and The Hyphens have got a fistfull of good ones here.
-Brian Mosher, BMO - BMO's World