If you thought ragtime was dead as a musical genre, my friends, you couldn’t be more correct. The New Orleans street carnival stylee has, like Brandon Flowers’ mustache, been out of fashion since the 1920s. Thing is, nobody informed White Rabbits.The Missouri-born indie rockers have infused their debut album with antique sounds from the land we call Dixie. And, by the look of their press photos, they've got the cool vintage suits to match. _Fort Nightly_, then, is chockful of plinkity-plonk piano, marching band drums, and enough drink-sodden Mardi Gras raucousness to earn a six month stretch in Rikers were you to _ever_ pull that shit on the streets of New York—where, ever so incidentally, this sextet have now been transplanted.But boy, do White Rabbits miss home. They’ve thrown festive calypso rhythms into the melting pot, too, along with other neglected genres of their formative years such as afro-beat, honky-tonk, and even a touch of... mariachi? What next? _Ska_?!Oh wait, they _have_ included ska.So can this musical multiculturalism work? Or does the album feature incongruities of Dita Von Teese-and-Marilyn Manson proportions?Let's investigate, gang!The album’s standout track is _The Plot_. This is perhaps unfortunate for White Rabbits’ given their genre-busting ambitions. See, the song sticks out not only for being absolute killer, but also because it’s the one track that doesn’t feature any of the fore mentioned exotic sounds. This is straight down the line rock'n'roll with a gunblast of a chorus that ricochets around your head for days. Or, as several critics have sniffily described it, “their most accessible song”. Yawn.(By the way, why do critics never mention whether a song made them dance or not? That's why rock’n’roll was invented!)Album highlights also include the stonking opener _Kid On My Shoulders_. It features a tropical backbeat more relentless than a secondhand car salesman who just got divorced. _While We Go Dancing_ is a clever and cutting Spoon-esque pop song that has its narrator goad a rival with, “you sleep your nights away, while we go dancing toe to toe”. One of the album's less oblique lyrics and all the better for it.The gravelly vocals delivering those lines belong to not one, but two lead singers. They couldn’t be more in harmony with _autotune_ implants in their voice boxes. Likewise, the band’s two (sometimes three) drummers line up cleaner than a station master’s whistle.Indeed, White Rabbits’ playing absolutely _swings_ throughout. It seems that unlike many of their indie rock contemporaries they're using the studio to proudly showcase their musicianship rather than deliberately conceal it.The album is not harmonious in every department, however. The best songs on _Fort Nightly_ appear during the first half. So, in the second half, only the good-humored _Navy Wives_ leaves a lasting impression. After that the tracks are increasingly meandering and ramshackle, like a wedding band getting progressively drunker as the night rolls on. Try to hum _Take A Walk Around The Table_ or _Tourist Trap_ in the shower and you’ll catch your death sooner than the tune.So, to answer my Dita-and-Marilyn question: yep, White Rabbits’ bold Latin and Caribbean grooves work well in an indie rock setting. Even if the songwriting is not always as sharp as the suits. Songs that made this reviewer dance: _The Plot_, _Kid On My Shoulders_, _Navy Wives_, _While We Go Dancing_, _I Used To Complain But Now I Don’t_....Hear more at "White Rabbits' MySpace.":http://www.myspace.com/whiterabbits
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