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The first Knitters album, Poor Little Critter On The Road, was a one-off project put together by X members John Doe, Exene Cervenka and D.J. Bonebrake, augmented by Dave Alvin and stand-up bass player Johnny Ray Bartel. They cut a bunch of the country and folk tunes that inspired X, as well as few X tunes done acoustic style. The set probably introduced a lot of punk rockers to Merle Haggard, The Carter Family and Leadbelly, and stands as an early example of acoustic Americana at its best. Twenty years later they return with another sterling effort, a bracing blast of clanging rockabilly full of passion and desperation. One has to assume that the title of the new Knitters album is ironic, because its sound is as fiercely retro as you can imagine. Alvin's slushy, reverb-drenched lead guitar highlights every track, while the harmonies of Doe and Cervenka still balance on the razor's edge of hope and desperation. There are a few reinvented X tunes, a Stanley Brothers cover, and a traditional English ghost ballad, but the biggest surprise is their deconstruction of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild." The verses are slowed down to a bluesy country dirge, then Alvin, Bartel and Bonebrake jump in with a shrieking blast of country-punk mayhem. The juxtaposition adds to the tune's drama and closes the album with the kind of mania that was always an X trademark.
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