In terms of performance and songwriting, Robert Cray’s albums have been high-quality, understated exercises in good-sense songwriting and muscular musical chops.
Twenty (in fact his fourteenth release) is no exception. As a lyricist, Cray still has a knack for painting strong visual images; here it’s the dazed, errant husband of “It Doesn’t Show” sitting amongst the possessions thrown out by his departing wife, and “Poor Johnny”, the philanderer betrayed by a scribbled phone number left in the wrong bedroom.
Besides being the longest song and providing the disc’s title, “Twenty” is obviously the showcase track. Treading much the same emotional ground as Steve Earle’s recent “Rich Man’s War” and sketched in stark lyrics, it traces a young U.S. recruit who signed up for duty in Iraq. A call-and-response between Cray’s ghostly vocals and a quiet, insistent electric guitar riff, the song touches on the questions Americans are still trying to answer after two years of war. It is as bitter as it is eloquent.
“They call this a war on terror/I see a lot of civilians dying,” Cray almost cries. “Mother’s sons, father’s daughters/Not to mention some friends of mine.”
Elsewhere, Twenty sports hooks galore and a nice blend of styles: enough up-tempo blues-rock for aficionados, a couple of slower numbers (notably “My Last Regret”, keyboardist Jim Pugh’s goodbye to cigarettes), and a slinky cover of William Bell’s “I Forgot To Be Your Lover”.
