After a successful solo outing, Aussie country singer Lachlan Bryan got his old band back into the studio and came up with this cracker of an album. It was released in the autumn of last year in Australia and subsequently picked up a major award as “Alternative Country” album of the year. Such acclaim means any belated praise from me is superfluous, but I’m keen to point out to Flyin’Shoes readers just how good this is.
I think you could ditch the “alternative” part of that award title. This is country music rooted in the thread that connects Willie Nelson to Steve Earle and, as such, will sound like familiar territory to an awful lot of mainstream country fans. The renegade life out on the edge, the teetering between God and the devil, the bad boy who always has it in him to come good – that’s the kind of vibe I pick up on this album. That all means it should sound kinda angry and snarly, but there’s an inherent warmth in Bryan’s voice that infects the whole album – in a good way. About the roughest he ever sounds is on the splendid Dragging My Chain. Heading down to the Gulf (of Mexico) Coast for his musical inspiration, he gets Zoe Rinkel and an excellent girl chorus to help him out, giving the performance oodles of classy country soul. Excellent stuff.
Throughout this album you can hear slight echoes of all the people who’ve influenced him – John Prine possibly, Kris Kristofferson maybe – but everything gets LB and the Wilde’s own distinctive twist. It’s certainly country music but it doesn’t quite sound like it could have been made in America; he’s in the tradition but not a slave to it, and certainly not afraid to go in his own direction. At the gentler end of the spectrum, my favourite song here is Change in the Wind, an elegantly constructed love song played on acoustic guitar and mandolin. The warmth of his singing is just beautiful here and it would take a pretty stoney heart not to be won over by this little beauty. There are depths to be discovered in his stories-in-a-song but I reckon you will be won over more or less immediately by an album that is high quality throughout; there isn’t a weak song here and the warmth of the performance invites you to dive right on in.
John Davy
