Album Review- Brian Setzer- Gotta Have the Rumble

One of my favorite albums of 2021 was Lee Rocker’s Gather Round. As a rockabilly fan, I hold Rocker in the highest esteem- musically, vocally, lyrically, etc and is one of my favorite musicians. So, saying that I feel like I’m giving an unintentional slight to Brian Setzer. That is not my intention. For one thing, Rocker is pretty free of the critical and commercial expectations of Setzer. I also don’t intend to criticize Setzer’s career direction of the last quarter-century, but it doesn’t fit my preferences. But that’s not up to me. Setzer’s Big Band career has surely satisfied - if not artistically (and I’m not saying it wasn’t) certainly financially. There are some great moments there and even some surprises- Brian’s album of classical pieces performed as a Big Band (from 2007) is better than you might expect. Nor would I dare say Setzer wasn’t the perfect frontman for his more famous band (every bit of the iconic well-coiffed blonde as Sting and Billy Idol). In any case, Gotta Have the Rumble is Setzer going back to make a rockabilly record. You probably can guess what it is like. Like the Stray Cats reunion disc from 2019- it’s all been done before. Still, it’s a fun listen. Setzer really doesn’t push himself out of fairly traditional rockabilly - pretty much Gene Vincent or Everly Brothers kind of stuff. Not psychobilly. Not horrorbilly. Not punkbilly or trashabilly or gothabilly. But at this point, you either know Setzer or you don’t, and at the end of the day, you probably do; and while you know exactly what you are getting, when he throws in some nuance like the slow dance Drip Drop, you buy in.