Dollar Store – Self-Titled

Sure, the Dollar Store is well-stocked from the country store pedal steel here, fiddle there but this is just good revved-up guitar rock with a twang. Singer-guitarist-songwriter Dean Schla-bowske is a founding Waco Brother; sometime Wacos Alan Doughty on bass and Joe Camarillo on drums round out the band. Good friends stop by, including Jon Rauhouse on pedal steel and Dave Alvin on lead guitar.

The anthemic New Country blasts off this debut CD with guitar, lap steel (by John Rice) and banjo dancing through the discomfiting tale of feeling foreign, where The jukebox is starting to cough and wheeze/Its played out of my misery. Its a fine setup for the slicing Around The Bend, in which Rices fiddle leads an electrified hoedown about a screwed-up man gone missing today, one who knows that the trip always has the same end/You wake up to find youre around the bend.

Explain Away tries to answer the lovelorn question of How did I become your straight man?; Exit #9 racingly describes a small-town speed trap; Working Line tells how lousy the working life can be. The whole thing rises or falls on Schlabowskes ability to drive his sturdy, shout-em-out voice (subtle it aint) to conviction and ride a catchy riff or chorus to success.

When it works well, its juiced-up sing-along rock begging for volume; Social Distortion creeps to mind. When it doesnt about half the time it just leaves you thinking, Bet that ones better in bar with a pitcher running on empty.