It's a Beatles world, which partly explains why I respect Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray for casting their lots so unequivocally with Elvis and sticking with it for so damn long. Midnight Soul Serenade is their third album together as Heavy Trash, and the duo continue to reinterpret the King of Rock'n'Roll and his early-rock noblemen as raunchy, bug-eyed Ralph Bakshi cartoons. That's not to say their schtick isn't schtick or that it doesn't constantly threaten to expire on every song. Even Presley, perhaps the least introspective rock musician ever, evolved and developed from 1956 to 77. Meanwhile, Spencer still whoops it up like he did a quarter-century ago.
That's why Verta-Ray makes such a good foil for him-- even more dynamic than the Dickinson brothers or even the Sadies. The former Madder Rose bass player and Blues Explosion touring member either draws out more nuance from Spencer or allows Spencer to draw it out himself, but without watering down his delivery. That makes Heavy Trash his most successful project this decade, or at least the one that most inventively restages his schtick. Compared to Spencer Dickinson or even JSBX, the range of styles and sounds on Midnight Soul Serenade is anarchic, full of goofing-around (but never winking) allusions to Sun Studio, Louisiana Hayride, Muscle Shoals, and juvenile delinquent films, as well as more than a few side glances toward contemporaries like the Flat Duo Jets, the White Stripes, and, ahem, Southern Culture on the Skids. Out of the gate, "Gee, I Really Love You" cribs off the Dixie Cups' cheat sheet, turning their "Chapel of Love" into a lascivious wedding-night come-on. On "Good Man", the duo hire the chain gang from either Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" or Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteeen Tons", as if to let you know how effortless it is. On the other hand, proximity to Link Wray (the stalled "Pimento" and the rattletrap "Sweet Little Bird") just shows how hard they have to work.
What saves Heavy Trash in general and Midnight Soul Serenade in particular is their unironic jocularity. For them, rock is supposed to be fun and freeing, and critical handwringing over Spencer's intentions toward rock seems to miss the point of his fairly straightforward goofball approach. Even if his music is something to "get" rather than to just blindly enjoy, the duo's approach here means they rarely get too caught up in provenance. Sure, there are dead ends here, such as the hallucinogenic story-song "The Pill" and the hokily ramblin' closer "In My Heart", but "Bumble Bee" is a fever-dream cartoon that's funnier than the old SNL skit, and "(Sometimes You Got to Be) Gentle" hurls increasingly randy single entendres over tremulously dissembling guitar riffs. In fact, name aside, Heavy Trash never get too heavy on Midnight Soul Serenade. It might be Spencer's lightest and breeziest album to date, a testimony to his stick-to-it-iveness despite the advancing years and changing trends.
