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Issue 9.6: Pure Volume
RANK AND FILE
August 04, 2005
SUNDOWN
Before there was "Americana," we used the term "cow-punk" to describe a country-tinged genre of music oftentimes played by former punk rockers. The seminal cow-punk record is Rank and File's Sundown. Formed from the ashes of the Dils, Chip and Tony Kinman created Rank and File with Alejandro Escovedo on lead guitar. Every track on Sundown features phenomenal songwriting, and Kinman's harmonized vocals float over a bed of new-wavish/country/reggae rhythms as Escovedo dances around them with his amazing guitar playing. The song "Coyote" tells of a bone-chilling tale about the plight of a possible immigrant tied up by a rancher's son, left in the baking sun to die. Sundown has a very imaginative, original sound and has just been reissued by Collector's Choice music. —Smash Records 1982, By Stephen R. Hart