Band : Death & Taxes

Album title : Tattooed Hearts & Broken Promises

Label : I Scream Records.

Distributor : SPV - CNR

Release date : 09/10/2007

Release : CD

From the very moment the editor-in-chief handed me the promo copy of this album (just the disc without booklet), I had a faint suspicion that it wasn't exactly a recent release...and I was right, having seen an ad (also for the albums of Bad Luck Charms and Enemy Rose) in the April issue of some Belgian music magazine. Turns out this album by the Newburyport (Massachusetts) based Death & Taxes had had a US release date of October 9, 2007...and had (possibly, because I'm not sure) only been released in Europe early this year.

For the background of the trio behind D & T, who got together in 2005, let's be short for once. Guitarist and now also lead singer Jeff Morris was a member of legendary Boston Street Punk/ Oi! band The Bruisers, who split up in the late '90s when singer Al Barr left to join Dropkick Murphys. Morris then formed the instrumental Cadillac Hitmen (who've currently 3 full-length albums to their name), which also includes drummer Steve Toland in its line-up. Bassist/ backing singer Mike Savitkas played bass at the successful reunion show of The Bruisers in 2005. It's from that reunion session that Death & Taxes came to be. With Morris as main songwriter, the music brought by D & T is a somewhat livelier mixture (through a shot of Street Punk here and there, perhaps) of what the guitarist brought with Cadillac Hitmen...who played a more authentic sounding Surf/ Country/ Rockabilly. Of course, the Punk shot is for a large part due to Morris' hoarsevoice, which really is in sinc with the music!Check/ compare by surfing to myspace.com/deathntaxesband (3 songs posted) and cadillacmen.com (6 samples posted)!

Nice album...wonder why we had to wait so long to get it sent for reviewing tasks!

80/100

Tony.