Brave Combo's fifth album, 1988's Humansville tones down the occasionally self-conscious giddiness of the band's earliest records. The humor seems less forced, with no hints of "Dig us, we're the wacky polka guys," and there's a slightly more serious mien to the album. Not that a Brave Combo album can be anything but lighthearted: Any group who essays covers like the Mexican pop standard "Besame Mucho" and the easy listening classic "Poor People of Paris" on the same album has to have a few giggles up their sleeves. The pinnacle of goofiness, though, is the closing track, "Tubular Jugs." Yep, it's a three-minute condensation of Mike Oldfield's prog-rock classic Tubular Bells, done in a jug band style. The funniest part is that it works, and that, as on the rest of the album, Carl Finch and crew put the song over not with a smirk, but with passionate, red-hot playing that gives the tune its due. For that reason alone, Humansville is the album on which Brave Combo leaves the novelty band tag behind for good.
Brave Combo
Humansville
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AllMusic Review by Stewart Mason
Track Listing
| Sample | Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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2:09 | Amazon | ||||
| 2 | 3:01 | Amazon | |||||
| 3 | 2:33 | Amazon | |||||
| 4 | 2:12 | Amazon | |||||
| 5 | 1:59 | Amazon | |||||
| 6 | 4:13 | Amazon | |||||
| 7 | 2:19 | Amazon | |||||
| 8 | 2:47 | Amazon | |||||
| 9 | 2:11 | Amazon | |||||
| 10 | 1:28 | Amazon | |||||
| 11 | 4:02 | Amazon | |||||
| 12 | 1:24 | Amazon | |||||
| 13 |
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2:54 | Amazon | ||||
| 14 | 1:54 | Amazon | |||||
| 15 | 3:01 | Amazon |
