The Cowards

Some of the music and performers I enjoy most have a penchant for not quite being figured out, for zagging when it seems they would zig.

The Cowards’ EP release Dog Smells Fear shows more than is at first apparant, surprising the listener by being adept at both contemporary popular rock and off-the-wall fun.

Nashville based but Bowling Green connected, The Cowards have lots of experience individually, and collectively it shows. They possess a serious approach to pop rock music and yet show a nicely bent sense of humor. The Cowards describe their style as “beer-soaked American guitar rock-n-roll fueling slice-of-life lyrical observations.”

OK, close enough . . . but I thinks they’d be having this much fun regardless of the beverage. The lineup for Dog Smells Fear is Jeff Davis (bass, acoustic guitar, lead and backing vocals), Ned Hill (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Eliot Houser (lead guitar, dobro, lead and backing vocals), Donnie Bott (rhythm guitar), and Stan Ray (drums).

Additional musicians include Viva Las Vagas (rhythm guitar), Tommy Womack (lead guitar) and Neal Cappellino (piano). The album as produced by Neal Cappellino and recorded at Poppi Studio in Nashville.

The members of the Cowards have plenty of history in the area. Jeff Davis was in Bowling Green based bands before, Davis in the Lunacats and Hill, from Horse Cave, in the Blue Cha- Chas.

Eliot Houser favored the area as a member of Nashville’s Bone Pony.

Now listed as band members in the promotional package, Viva Las Vegas and drummer Reggie Las Vegas are natives of Elizabethtown, and Viva played with both Government Cheese and the Toxic Shocks.

The guitar and rhythm base of The Cowards shows off the charm of the group — the eminently listenable vocals and melodic turns of the songs, combined with interesting lyrical forays, that make the five songs on Dog Smells Fear catchy on the surface and more than expected when the surface is scratched. The first two tracks “Ever Closer” and “Complicated Girl” have good pop hooks over jangly guitar and compelling beats. Then you get the curve of the riotous “Hangin’ Out at Walmart,” which stomps through its philosophizing from the aisles and checkouts of department store hell. “Trailer Trash” sonically sends up country as it lyrically does the same to the average mobile home resident, in this case one girl who “got too big for her britches/Got her a job writing parking tickets/Now she works undercover.“

The lyrical acumen becomes more apparent with the allusion in “The Dream Makes the Day,” a song where Tommy Womack guests with some jutting lead guitar that contrasts artfully with the reflective tone of the song.

The Cowards are expecting to be back in Bowling Green next in September or October. Dog Smells Fear sells for $5.99 on CD and is available on the Cowards’ website (www.omnibusweb.com/cowards).

Contact the band at 2801 Brightwood Ave., Suite A, Nashville, TN 37212 or by calling (615)292-1587.

Don Thomason is a writer and musician living in Dunbar. Visit him at www.myspace.com/donthomasonmusic