Alabama 3 - The Gospel Train
[One Little Indian]

As has been said many times about them, you’d think Alabama 3 came from the sort of place that their name suggests. You’d think they were a bunch of rednecks who’d crawled out of the backwoods of America led by a mad preacher, the guy in the white vest and black leather Stetson. They actually come from Newport, South Wales, or somewhere like that.

Their most famous moment was doing the theme tune for The Sopranos. Coupled with the images of Tony Soprano driving through New York, the tune makes for one of the best TV opening titles ever. It’s also a pretty good example of the stuff that Alabama 3 have been doing for almost a decade now.

Their tunes are psycho-gospel/blues with heavy basslines and synths behind them. They’re a modern take on the old preacher roadshows that went round the deep-south but the stylings are done ironically. They love these images of mad, southern hicks without any of the bad stuff that went with them.

And this tune is more of the same. A slow, groovy soul tune with a big gospel choir backing it up. “The gospel train is coming – You’d better pray” he sings over acoustic guitars that have been cut-up with a laptop. Alabama 3 take some scary, twisted stuff and make something funny and cool out of it without straying anywhere near the regions of comedy-rock.