***1/2, Flat Duo Jets

LUCKY EYE

(Outpost)

The name Dexter Romweber gave to his psychotic American roots band was, by all appearances, the only glimmer of sense left in the man's troubled head (we're talking about a guy with certifiably Roky Erikson-like tendencies, kids). Yes, he was incapable of hitting most of the notes. They were indeed a duo. And the soused violence they committed in the name of rockabilly, country, and blues? Well, the closest they came to Tennessee was the airport, or at least the sound of the busy runway. Point being, Romweber is in possession of a runaway lunatic genius, but it has never been the type of marketable talent you'd expect someone to try to cultivate.

But producer Scott Litt (Liz Phair, R.E.M.) did the unthinkable -- he hauled the Jets to no less a landmark studio than Muscle Shoals, carted in a string section and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, even made Dexter wear a suit. All this to record songs like the title track, which has no lyrics other than those words repeated endlessly (same goes for "Hot Rod Baby"); "Blues Wrapped Around My Head," in which Rapunzel decides she'd rather stay in her tower than let down her hair and live in sin; and "Sharks Flying In," in which Dexter's girlfriend is abducted by sharks from outer space. What emerged is either the first brilliant avant-garde comedy album ever made in the guise of a slick '70s Nashville country album, or a display of redneck drag unseen since that ol' minstrel-show fave, The Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, it's only occasionally flat, never the work of a duo, and wholly unlike an airplane. Which is fine, except that the last pinhole of coherence in Dexter's head has now flown the coop.

-- Carly Carioli<