Reviewed by Harry Kaplan

Honky tonk heaven I tell you. This has it all. Great writing and vocals, great picking, and twang out the wazoo. If I wanted to find a flaw, and I don’t, it would be difficult. Continental Breakfast Of Champions IS country music. Unadulterated and in its purest form. I have never heard of Nathan Kalish & The Lastcallers before now, but I hope to hear a lot more of them. It shouldn’t be that hard since this is a real touring band. They were on the road for 250 days in 2015. Now that is a hefty number of shows. Clearly, they love what they do and the time spent playing together had paid dividends on Continental Breakfast Of Champions. They are a tight unit. Although the band consists of three, they really blend into one. If you try to focus on the individual instruments, you can. But why? They laid it all out for us and made it so easy. It’s like Lemonheads (the confection, not the band) for your ears. Ear candy.

 

The entire album is great, but it really gets cookin’ around Track 4, Overdosin On The USA. Tracks 4 through 8 are the meat of the album and the other 5 tracks make up the bread for this honky tonk sandwich. I must be hungry because this is my second food reference in this review.

Rich Man’s Tool Then Die (Track 8 ) is a real catchy number. Not only catchy, but quite prophetic. It deals with doing your own thing and earning a living any way you can without working for “The Man”. Great harmonies and instrumentation round out this track nicely. My favorite track to date is Walk Straight (Track 7). This song starts off with a really nice bluesy/country guitar intro. Kalish’s vocals intertwine with the guitar beautifully and then the harmonies follow. This is a great one. Pick your own favorite. There are 10 to choose from and all are worthy candidates. Take a listen for yourself. Then buy that gem right here.