ALBUM REVIEW: Blackberry Smoke Confirms Southern Rock Bona Fides on ‘Be Right Here’
Henry Carrigan
Posted On February 14, 2024
Over the past 20 years, Blackberry Smoke has earned a reputation as a hard-driving, hard-working Southern rock band. Their new album, the Dave Cobb-produced Be Right Here, confirms the band’s place in the rock pantheon with its combination of propulsive rockers and gentle ballads.
The foot-stompin’ funk of the verses of the defiant anthem “Dig a Hole” launches into a soaring chorus of harmonies that reaffirm our freedom either to embrace life as it comes and not be buried by its burdens or to crawl into the holes we’ve shoveled for ourselves. Charlie Starr’s searing guitar leads on the instrumental bridge and the song’s gospel-inflected chorus evoke the exhilarating joys of living life to its fullest.
Cascading keyboards and guitars drive the straight-ahead rocker “Hammer and the Nail,” another song about how the choices we make in our lives shape us. The atmospheric “Whatchu Know Good,” with its haunting guitar riffs and snaking lead runs, capture the ethos of a small town and its denizens, while the gently unfurling “Other Side of the Light,” with its shimmering guitars and sonic resemblance to The Allman Brothers’ “Blue Sky,” conveys the warmth and security of someone’s sheltering arms.
Crystalline guitar riffs spin around Starr’s spare vocals on the gorgeous “Azalea,” a flowering ode to leaving home and coming back again. “Little Bit Crazy” opens with an a cappella chorus reminiscent of Humble Pie’s “30 Days in the Hole” before launching into a blistering rocker that has echoes of REO Speedwagon’s “Whiskey Night.” And album closer “Barefoot Angel” is a towering Southern rock anthem that pulls back to a gentle ballad of gratitude for a lover’s presence in the singer’s life.
A gift of the best of Southern rock and country rock, Be Right Here celebrates Blackberry Smoke’s musical ingenuity and dedication to passing along the musical traditions on which the band builds.
Blackberry Smoke’s Be Right Here is out Feb. 16 via 3 Legged Records/Thirty Tigers.
