The Slow Poisoners have played with the likes of Green Day, Sophie B. Hawkins and surf guitar legend Dick Dale; their first full-length recording “Great Spiders and Diamond Powders” (PopSmear Records) sank without trace, and their latest offering, “The God that Failed” was recorded at the legendary Sun studios, Memphis.
So who are the Poisoners, and what are they doing languishing so cheerfully in pop’s backwaters? Well, they sound like Weezer’s hillbilly cousins, with a disarming combination of nerd rock, skiffle rhythms and twanging guitar, that brings to mind a small troupe of ‘real’ musicians dragging ‘real’ instruments from bar to bar and enjoying life without power chords. You imagine also that U.S. college radio would be their natural habitat, although, bar the elliptical and witty lyrics, there’s just enough rockabilly in there to place them on the edges of country music as well.
Meantime, the band keep playing on, in festivals and bars, and “The God that Failed” earns lead vocalist Andrew ‘Poisoner’ my award for the Best Travelling Wilbury that Never Was.