Mitch Webb & The Swindles - Fantastico  (click on image to watch video)

 12 December 2019

For more than a decade and a half now, San Antonio-based Mitch Webb And The Swindles have been churning out a remarkably satisfying blend of Country, Garage Rock, Rockabilly and Soul, all slathered with Tex Mex horns and accordion. Fantastico, thankfully, is more of the same.

The album kicks off with the title track, a three-minute instrumental that sounds like surf rock performed by a bunch of cowboys (which truth be told, is exactly what it is). From there it moves into a solid mix of up-tempo and downtempo tracks covering everything from drug smuggling to homecomings, bar songs, and lady troubles. “Gone, Gone, Gone,” originally intended to be recorded by the Georgia Satellites in the mid-‘80s is handled perfectly here, adding a little more Country vibe to this Southern Rock gem. Elsewhere the band also deftly covers “Driftwood” by scene mates the Hickoids, yet again, styling it in their own image. The highlight, though, is “New Bordertown,” with a brilliant mix of horns and accordion and a chorus that sticks with you for hours.  

There are a few moments that drag here and there, like “Barrel of a Gun,” a ballad about a dead lover, but those moments are few and relatively far between. And even a song like “I Was So Wrong,” coming near the end of the album and sounding unlike anything that comes before it, a ballad that nearly crawls along, improves with repeated listening’s.

 It’s been about 11 years since the band last put out a studio album and clearly the rust hasn’t started to set in yet.  

Bobby Moore

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