CD Reviews for Jan. 27, 2012
Kellie Pickler:100 PROOF
Kellie Pickler, a one-time American Idol contestant, released her third major-label album this week. It’s a varied, often swaggering batch of songs, many of them co-written by this singer from a humble, even disadvantaged background in small-town North Carolina who turned her national TV exposure into country music stardom,
Pickler gets especially personal with two 100 Proof songs inspired by her wayward parents, “Mother’s Day” and “The Letter (To Daddy).”
By now it’s well known that the singer was raised by her grandparents after being abandoned by her mother. “Mother’s Day” is a bittersweet song about what she missed but also what she may yet have. “Maybe one day God’ll bless me with a daughter of my own,” she wonders. “We’ll have a love I’ve never known.”
Pickler’s father was lost to her in large part through his prison time, but “The Letter (To Daddy)” mentions another, likely related problem, alcoholism.
“The bottle took you from me when I was a child,” she sings. The story ends happily, with her dad giving up the bottle. Thus, “The Letter” and “Mother’s Day” both are songs of healing.
Other 100 Proof tracks feature Pickler singing extroverted songs in full Southern-accented strut. She can’t decide whether to love or kill her man in the complaint-filled “Where’s Tammy Wynette.” But there’s nothing indecisive about “Unlock That Honky Tonk,” in which the fired up Pickler is ripe for a honky-tonking good time.
Pleading but also pledging an eye for eye in “Stop Cheating On Me,” Pickler turns to the traditional country she heard as a child growing up with her grandparents. “I can make my own deal with the devil,” she sings in this somebody-doing-someone wrong song. “Yeah, then you’ll find out that hell can sure be cold.”
There’s listener-pulling motion in “Little House On The Highway,” a road song powered by a driving tempo. The momentum returns for the similarly moving Tom Petty- and Eagles-like “Rockaway (The Rockin’ Chair Song).” Even though it’s the least country song on 100 Proof, “Rockaway” may also among be its best.
Lamb of God: RESOLUTION
Resolution, the seventh album from Lamb of God, lords of metal from Richmond, Va., explodes with heavy- and speed-metal power and rage. It follows the band’s Grammy-nominated album from 2009, Wrath, which debuted on the Billboard Top 200 album chart at No. 2. The just-released Resolution may resolve itself to No. 1. If it doesn’t, it won’t be because Lamb of God didn’t make a metal disc that doesn’t deliver a knockout punch.
Resolution bursts with R. Randall Blythe’s guttural, demonized vocals and Mark Morton’s blistering guitar riffs. The album also shows a band that’s still growing, still seeking creative conquests. Amidst the music’s fluttering guitar and bass buzz, Resolution’s songs gain dimension from abruptly shifting tempos and acoustic intros and interludes. “The Number Six,” for instance, contains sharp stops and starts and vocal call and response. “Cheated” starts at mid-tempo before kicking forward to an express beat.
The influence of prog rock, that ambitious but once-maligned rock subgenre, sways Resolution. No surprise that, technically, Lamb of God meets the prog-rock challenge with prodigious chops and exceptional, even melodic, writing and performance.
Various artists: THIS ONE’S FOR HIM: A TRIBUTE TO GUY CLARK
In the realm of singer-songwriters, 70-year-old Guy Clark is one those songwriter’s songwriters. He’s never sold many records, but his songs have been taken up, cherished and recorded by others whose versions did become hits. Clark’s fans through the decades included Jerry Jeff Walker, Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe, Ricky Skaggs, George Strait, Vince Gill and the Highwaymen.
In recognition of Clark’s 70th birthday, which he reached Nov. 6, the Houston-based Icehouse Music released a two-CD tribute, This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, last month. The set’s 30 performances by 33 artists are a splendid introduction to a great Texas singer-writer.
The tribute’s participating talent is itself amazing. Featuring Clark’s friends and admirers, the two discs include Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Joe Ely, Emmylou Harris with John Prine, Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Kevin Welch, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and John Townes Van Zandt.
Clark’s songs work beautifully through their gifted hands and voices, a testament to his work.
He frequently writes about characters. One of them is the old drifter and driller of oil wells in “Desperadoes Waiting For A Train,” sung here by Willie Nelson.
Shawn Colvin performs “All He Wants Is You,” an irony-tinged portrait of a man who’s got everything he wants but the one he loves. There’s more spirit-nagging obsession in “Broken Hearted People.” “If I can’t be her man, I’m damned if I’ll be her fool,” Ron Sexsmith sings from his barstool. And a starry duo of Emmylou Harris and John Prine play two broken-hearts in “Magnolia Wind.” “If I can’t dance with you, then I won’t dance at all,” Harris declares in this sad waltz.
Comparable characters run through many of Clark’s country, folk and blues-touched songs. Along with Clark’s authorship, that provides more unifying thread for this stellar birthday tribute.