Rolling Stone (8/21/97, p.108) - 3.5 Stars (out of 5) - "...Henneman has emerged as a first-class songwriter, able without apparent artifice to capture life in a simple phrase....It's not quite country, for no country outfit could so openly betray its fondness for Motorhead, but it is an honest, enduring album..."
The Bottle Rockets: Brian Henneman (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars); Tom Parr (vocals, guitar); Tom V. Ray (bass); Mark Ortmann (drums, handclaps, sleighbells, percussion).
Additional personnel: Eric "Roscoe" Ambel (vocals, guitar, piano, organ, melotron, tamborine, sleighbells, percussion, claps); Andy York (vocals, organ); Joe Flood (5-string acoustic guitar, gut-banjo, mandolin, fiddle, background vocals); Jack, Diane (guitar); Jay Sherman-Godfrey (cello); Jeremy Tepper (harmonica); Jim Duffy (organ).
Recorded at Echo Park Studio, Bloomington, Indiana; Coyote Recording Studio, Brooklyn, New York.
These country-rock heroes of the working class made their major-label leap amid a storm of reservations. Would success spoil the Bottle Rockets and smooth the proletarian edge off their music? There was never any cause for alarm. 24 HOURS A DAY finds the Brooklyn cowboys remaining true to their roots.
As this album bears out, the Bottle Rockets veer more toward the rock end of the spectrum than many of their country-rock contemporaries. There is little or no nostalgia for the wide open spaces in these songs. Rather, they echo the desolate, trailer-park wasteland of postwar America that exists from coast to coast. Songs like "Kit Kat Clock" and the title tune reflect the lives of people trapped in the Great American Desert of the 9 to 5, strip-mall, convenience store world. Rough, gritty vocals and dirty, hard-edged guitars keep things from getting too maudlin and allow the protagonists the cathartic option of rocking their blues away.