6x****
Opened by Mike Cooley's Uncle Tupelo-esque "Where The Devil Won't Stay", The Dirty South comes out with guns blazing conventionally. The volume immediately pulls back with Patterson Hood's "Tornadoes"****, but the effect is far more immediate with the familiar description 'it sounded like a train'. Likewise Hood's "Sands Of Iwo Jima"**** is driven home by the stinger 'never saw John Wayne of the Sands of Iwo Jima'. Both Cooley and Hood present tales of hardship and excess in "Puttin People On The Moon"**** and Cooley's excellent "Cottonseed"****. Hood's "The Boys From Alabama"**** descends fully into the criminal life with the snare fully ringing (like 'Rain On The Scarecrow'. Most of the remainder is poppy alt-country, "The Day John Henry Died" and "Carl Perkins Cadillac", or the heavier-rocking Son Volt of "Buford Stick", "Never Gonna Change", and "Lookout Mountain". Next to this conventional fare the album actually seems to function better with the gain turned down, as on "Danko/Manuel", but the closing "Goddamn Lonely Love"**** combines the hooks, melody, and stinger 'to kill this Goddamn lonely love' to sum up the best of this album most perfectly.
Opened by Mike Cooley's Uncle Tupelo-esque "Where The Devil Won't Stay", The Dirty South comes out with guns blazing conventionally. The volume immediately pulls back with Patterson Hood's "Tornadoes"****, but the effect is far more immediate with the familiar description 'it sounded like a train'. Likewise Hood's "Sands Of Iwo Jima"**** is driven home by the stinger 'never saw John Wayne of the Sands of Iwo Jima'. Both Cooley and Hood present tales of hardship and excess in "Puttin People On The Moon"**** and Cooley's excellent "Cottonseed"****. Hood's "The Boys From Alabama"**** descends fully into the criminal life with the snare fully ringing (like 'Rain On The Scarecrow'. Most of the remainder is poppy alt-country, "The Day John Henry Died" and "Carl Perkins Cadillac", or the heavier-rocking Son Volt of "Buford Stick", "Never Gonna Change", and "Lookout Mountain". Next to this conventional fare the album actually seems to function better with the gain turned down, as on "Danko/Manuel", but the closing "Goddamn Lonely Love"**** combines the hooks, melody, and stinger 'to kill this Goddamn lonely love' to sum up the best of this album most perfectly.
Comments