Album: Duane Eddy, Road Trip (Mad Monkey)

Duane Eddy's much-vaunted hook-up with Richard Hawley is a meeting of like minds – perhaps too alike to bring anything new to the table, although Road Trip is never less than enjoyable.

Eddy's signature twang is well showcased on the opening "Attack of the Duck Billed Platypus", where the eerie organ and air of dark foreboding gives it the feel of surf music crashing on a sinister coast. "Primeval" is grungey twangabilly in the vein of Link Wray; "Twango" a whammy-bar-laced nod to Django Reinhardt; "Road Trip" itself a relaxed footnote to "Take Me Home, Country Roads". But Eddy's forte lies in powerfully evocative sonic postcards, as with "Franklin Town" and "Bleaklow Air", which offer atmospheric trips through deserted Texas border-town and mittel-European spy-thriller scenario, respectively.

DOWNLOAD THIS: Attack of the Duck Billed Platypus; Bleaklow Air; Twango