Rachel Brooke’s A Killer’s Dream is best enjoyed in the kitchen. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, though. See, this album is a time machine. Brooke has captured the smoky, illicit feel of a true rockabilly club — her seductive purrs and desperate wails don’t belong in the ears of nice girls and men in gray flannel suits.
Her desperation in “Late Night Lover” transports us to an era without sexting or free love; the romance and desperation of an illicit tryst the old-fashioned way. “Fox In a Hen House” and “Serpentine Blues” are a furnace blast of vengeance. And if you’re able to get through “Old Faded Memory” — a duet about two lovers, long since separated, reminiscing about their youths — with a dry eye, you’d better check yourself into Bellevue.
This album belongs in The Basics — an honest-to-goodness record that grabs you and won’t let go. You’ll be seeing it on my top 10 list next week. According to this interview, Saving Country Music has dubbed Brooke the queen of underground country. I can’t think of anyone else who deserves the title more.
Long live the queen.