When the product of a Kentucky coal-mining family teams up with former instrumentalists for Cake and Macy Gray, the result is marked with both a humble, "tired persistence" and an unforgiving (albeit well-deserved) arrogance. Fans of the Panderers aptly call it "road rock." For now, we know it as Songs That Bang.
Perhaps the most bangin' thing about these songs is their resistance to bang. Low-key and uncomplicated, unrushed in their gallop, The Panderers don't exactly boast, but they should. Their sound can be likened to Cake with a heavier heart, although much less smart-alecky and much more rootsy. Bare, gritted, bluesy. The Panderers keep it to a low thump.
Frontman Scott Wynn speaks thoughtfully of his family's days of Appalachia, coal mining, and treating kerosene as "the universal anti-septic," a humble history that influences him both personally and musically. The references are most obvious in "Dig," a bluesy, bare run matching mining imagery in its embittered lyrics. The next track, "Let It Run" is perhaps a broader testimony to Wynn's simple roots. It is, in Wynn's words, an anthem of "tired persistence," one of waiting and hoping without definite expectation and celebrating the simple moments of ecstasy. "Come On" picks up the tempo, insisting you kick the barstool aside and kick the suburbs out of your hips. The sly, dry vocal swagger is an insistent hand holding out for a dance. "Montana" and "Invincible Game" even slide in a smooth, almost jazzy roll. And yet all the songs are strung by a unique, definitive tone that could only evidence the genuine sincerity of this band's words and sounds.
That connecting element is the "road rock" classification offered by Panderers fans. These songs are meant for rough pavement rolling into another state's sunset. Songs That Bang is the dust of long travels, the dirt ingrained in the skin of your knuckles, the gravel beneath well-worked boots, aching of tired years and determined to dance past them.