Damn, I’ve fallen off the bar again. Amazing how it moves about after the first seven. Meanwhile, on the jukebox in my head, I’m hearing Steve Warner & The Rolling Coyotes playing songs from their album “Train of Life”. That, of course, implies that this is an album of hard drinking cowboy songs when it is actually more like clean living outlaw country. Just like Willie Nelson used to make before he discovered acting….
There is an uncertain hand at the tiller though and the musical direction of this album tends to follow the current rather than a plan. It’s always likeable however and sometimes quite charming with the western swing of “Better Off Without You” likely to induce a smile or three to go with your sarsaparilla before the polite Americana of the title track takes us back towards the straight and narrow. Cranking up the emotion is “Old Lover’s Heart” with Nancy Lynn’s vocals indulging in some effective melodrama but rather less effective were a lumpen cover of the Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon” and the awkward anti war sentiments expressed in “The War Has Just Began”.
With 17 songs squeezed on to this CD, you can’t argue with the value. I reckon it would have been improved though if a handful of these songs had been dropped to bring a higher level of consistency and a clearer direction to this album.
Available from CD Baby.