Americana, by definition, wouldn't seem to translate well overseas. But Rumble, Shake and Tumble, from the Australian band Wagons, is stuffed with hard-hitting roots music, American-style. The group crafts a just-right mixture of the self-deprecating, the self-destructive and the self-referential throughout the album, and the result is suitable for blaring out of every bar from St. Louis to Sydney.
A rough-edged ode to the fine art of messing up a relationship, "I Blew It" is part apology, part acknowledgment of mutual culpability ("We always knew I'd blow it, didn't we?"), and part celebration, all crafted by a bunch of whip-smart Aussies brave enough to write an ode to Willie Nelson and throw in an occasional dash of Nick Cave-worthy sturm und drang. "I Blew It" may not be revolutionary, but it's a refreshing take on the familiar.
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