Low Cut Connie: Call Me Sylvia

Low Cut Connie’s second album Call Me Sylvia could equally have come from a ’70s bar, a ’60s garage, or ’50s Memphis. The group fits into all these genres, but not because they’ve got a scattershot approach. Pianist Adam Weiner could be Jerry Lee Lewis trying to liven up the Troggs, but the aesthetic is more the success of stripping down rather than a crisis of amalgamation. Low Cut Connie gets rock ‘n’ roll down to its essential elements: sweat and fun. The band covers booze, sex, and Cadillacs, opening with a come-on and not really letting that go, aside from the comedic respite of the Fats Domino-flavored “(No More) Wet T-Shirt Contests”. The band laughs as easily as it destroys, and its ceaseless energy seems only to need more outlets. If the trans-Atlantic boogies push into the elemental, they also become the quintessential. If an alien landed and asked what rock ‘n’ roll is, you could start here. Few bands right now are doing this as well, and even fewer seem to be enjoying it as much.