Punk/rockabilly legends Reverend Horton Heat keep constantly pumping out albums with a gap of 2 years between the releases, so after the excellent 2000-album Spend A Night In The Box the waiting for a new album was expected not to last longer than 2002. Yep, Reverend Jim Heath brings us fourteen new songs under the album title Lucky 7. Apparently dropped from Time Bomb Recordings after only one album, they`ve now found refuge at the small Artemis Records label.

Lucky 7, unfortunately, is by far the album I`ve hoped it would be. Spend A Night In A Box showed progression towards slower, more intimate songs in favour of the punky songs they had been playing for years. Unfortunately, this progression has been made undone and Lucky 7 is again basically all about pure rockabilly songs with a punk attitude. Now this wouldn`t have been such a big problem if the songs were at least memorable, but the lionshare of them are not.

Lucky 7 sounds more like a leftover-compilation from the last 2 or 3 RHH albums than a new release, and it doesn`t get really interesting until six songs into the album, with "The Tiny Voice Of Reason" and especially "Duel At The Two O`Clock Bell" - a very laidback (and experimental) instrumental masterpiece. The only other few songs that are worth mentioning are "Go With Your Friends" and the comical two-piece "Sermon On The Jimbo"/"You`ve Got A Friend In Jimbo".

Overall, Lucky 7 can be considered the most flawed album in the entire line of RHH albums, rating even below the Space Heater album. Even though _some_ of the songs on this album belong to the best RHH material ever written, the rest is so absolutely mediocre that it doesn`t deserve to be put out as a full-length. Let`s hope that the Reverend takes some time off, distantiates himself a bit, and comes up with some new and refreshing tunes for the 2004 release.