Somethin' Else (Universal South, 2006)

10 City Run's debut opens with a snippet, complete with static and fade-out, of a DJ introducing a song from the band on a radio station "serving up country and western music, Texas style." That's an apt but incomplete precis of the band, which also mixes some Tex-Mex and Bakersfield style into its country and western and is at times reminiscent of the Derailers and the late, lamented Hollisters.

The band gained its record deal with Universal South by winning a Texas state-wide talent competition, and judging from the results, is making the most of the opportunity that that victory afforded them. The record is a winning mix of covers and originals: the uptempo rumbler "City of Angels," the Buckaroo-infused "In It to Win It" and the honky tonk weeper "Congratulations" sit well alongside cool takes on the western swing standard "Stay All Night" (slowed down and thrown into a minor key), the Eddie Cochran chestnut "Somethin' Else," and Doug Sahm's "Juan Mendoza" (updated with references to terrorism and "George W"). 10 City Run makes well-wrought, no-frills honky tonk music that rocks as hard as it twangs.