Conquest Music [Release date : 03.07.26]

The Ugly Guys 9^th album ‘Highway Shoes’ is everything you would want from a good country rock album, and more!

It’s a perfectly balanced showcase of their own song craft, tempered by well chosen covers. It also highlights their interpretive abilities, first class musicianship, and above all, conveys their sense of having fun.

Established in Southend in 2003, the band took its name from a 1975 Kursaal Flyers song, and significantly features the former Kursaal’s founder members Paul Shuttleworth on vocals and multi-instrumentalist Vic Collins.

They are joined by vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Steve Oliver; the former Micky Jupp, Lew Lewis and Chicken Shack drummer Bob Clouter, and Neville Kiddier on bass.

The 14 tracks mix original material with cleverly chosen covers over a wide spectrum of country music.

They explore roots-rock, pub-rock, outlaw country, story-telling, honky-tonk, swing, Tex- Mex and Americana, in a style sometimes referred to as Cosmic Country, which illuminates a more contemporary approach, first given credence by the late Gram Parsons.

Above all, this is an album which suggests they’ve spent the last two decades or more, honing their lyrical craft with inspired playing.

The band’s impressive song writing skills predominantly come from the Shuttleworth/Oliver and Collins trio, and the opening Americana styled title track sets the lyrical and musical template for a hugely enjoyable album.

‘Highway Shoes’ is an interwoven journey of musically related styles, spanning the wry, irony and pub-rock into honky-tonk feel, of Micky Jupp’s ‘I Should Be Loving This’, right through to the Jimmy Webb penned ‘Adios’, which provides a poignant book-end to the album (and some might argue, to an era as a whole).

They are also unafraid to interpret songs on their own terms, as evidenced by the deftly arranged cover of Willie Nelson’s ‘Funny How Time Slips Away’, which after a lengthy one minute intro, leads to Paul Shuttleworth’s vulnerably phrased vocal, over a mix of acoustic guitar, piano, pedal steel and brush strokes.

The self-penned up-tempo country rocker ‘Bobby Joe’s’ features an exhilarating vocal from Steve Oliver, who brings alive the lyrical imagery.

They further revel in their interpretative skills on the George Jones inspired ‘Hotter Than a Two Dollar Pistol’, with some neat picking, cool bv’s and a vibrant rhythm section, and rock out on the pedal steel injected version of Vince Gill’s ‘What The Cowgirls Do’.

But, it’s the way their own material blends in with the covers that gives this album both its flow and integrity.

Check out for example, the wry story telling narrative of ‘Queen of the Vegas Strip’: “She was a showgirl in Las Vegas 39 years too old, Now she rides the wire at the Stardust wearing nothing but her smile.”

“She even had a photo, with Elvis in ‘69, but that was in the early days, way back in her prime.”

They veer towards Tex-Mex on the pedal steel, riff-driven ‘When The Women Come Out To Dance’, a song with a Doug Sahm feel. It’s another example of their occasional ‘less is more’ approach on the solo section, so allowing the melody to uplift more clever lyrics:

“When the women come out to dance, just looking for a little romance, the wrong place at the perfect time, when the women come out to dance.”

Then there’s the mid-tempo, gospel tinged, country feel of ‘When I Met My Maker’, which is full of banjo, pedal steel, double vocal lines and a great chorus: “When I meet my maker, will I know him, when my sins are washed away will I be free, when I meet my make will I know him, and will my makes know me?”

Such is the depth of their own musical lineage that they are able to include the old Kursaal Flyers music hall humour of ‘Drinking Socially’ (once, a B-Side to ‘Little Does She Know’).

The confidence of the band is such that they imaginatively rearrange some covers to their own end, particularly on the Mickey Newbury’s Folk-into-Americana ballad ‘San Francisco Mabel Joy’, on which the song’s sad subject matter is elucidated by Steve Oliver’s plaintive vocal and Vic Collins Dobro and pedal steel work.

There’s also a lovely combination of pedal steel, accordion and rich harmonies on an imaginative arrangement of Michael Murphy’s 1972 classic ‘Geronimo Cadillac’ which makes it more than worthy of inclusion.

The twangy instrumental called ‘El Vicar’ is different again, as it has an end-of-session feel, as if they’ve done all the meticulous work and now just wanted a blow.

‘Highway Shoes’ is full of great songs, thoughtful arrangements, and exuberant band interplay. It’s shot through with an adventurous approach, which acts as a timely reminder that country music can be still be original, fun, and when in the hands of The Ugly Guys, truly inspiring. *****

Review by Pete Feenstra

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 17 August 2026

STORMBRINGER Dirt And Bone (Attic Records)
SARI SCHORR Mr. In The Middle (Provogue Records)
JAMES KENNEDY & THE UNDERDOGS Shadows (Konic Records)
KATH & THE KICKS Sleep (indie)
VELVETEEN QUEEN Too Far Gone (Silver Lining Music)
SESAME GIRL Prettiest Girl In The World (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 17 August 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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