Of course I got excited when I saw stuff saying there was a "new" Lone Justice album. Of course it's not really "new". Still, the cuts on Viva Lone Justice do involve the original members. And they were recorded -- despite some overdubs -- back in the early Nineties. So I guess the quality of the music offsets the weirdness I feel as a listener about a record that's billed as a "new" Lone Justice record, but which is really a collection of leftover Maria McKee tracks from 1992 according to some sources dressed up as Lone Justice offerings. That she was joined by members of the band, like Ryan Hedgecock and the late Don Heffington does not necessarily make them Lone Justice tracks, given that she was in the middle of recording her second solo album at the time.
Still, Viva Lone Justice is full of so much energy that one can almost believe you're hearing this band in its infancy. "Teenage Kicks" blasts out of the speakers, the Undertones cover making perfect sense given that Maria McKee wrote "A Good Heart" for Feargal Sharkey way back when. Elsewhere, "Jenny Jenkins" and "Alabama Baby" are exactly what people mean when they say cow-punk. And for all the hillbilly grit that's here in "Wade in the Water", there's also a joy going through these tracks that renders them a bit more lively than anything Lone Justice committed to either of their two official Geffen albums.
The magic of Lone Justice was, of course, Maria McKee's voice. And a cover here of "I Will Always Love You" is for sure one of the best performances she's committed to tape in her long and wonderful career. The scattershot nature of Viva Lone Justice oddly juxtaposes ballads like that with stompers like "Rattlesnake Mama", but that gets at the appeal of Lone Justice. They were a ragtag amalgamation of so many genres that the Eighties just didn't know what to do with them. Viva Lone Justice might be the reminder that some need of just how great this band was.
Viva Lone Justice by Lone Justice is out now via Afar / Fire Records.
[Photo: Dennis Keeley]