Review Summary: Are Blackberry Smoke the successors of Lynyrd's legacy?
"I wanna do it like it's never been done [...]" sings the long-haired Charlie Starr, front man and guitarist of Blackberry Smoke. And with such a bold statement coming out from the opening track "Six Ways To Sunday" you are left wondering: how serious are these guys? Well, the answer is pretty much! Touring with legends such as ZZ Top, Zac Brown Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and looking as a gang of desperadoes from Bonanza, the quintet from Georgia has the proper temperament for a Southern rock band. Add to the mix the bluegrass and the gospel elements in a delicate played country rock music and you have a full house.
But success wasn't immediate. It took the band eight years, two changes of record label and lots of touring before recording the album that would put them on the 'Southern rock' map for good.
The Whippoorwill, is the band's third studio album and the first under Zac Brown's record label "Southern Ground". What is immediately apparent in relation to the two previous releases is the improved production which keeps the country and the rock element on equal levels. Rhythms are smooth while the riffs are simple and delicate. Vocals are full of southern aesthetics while the piano tones garniture the songs in a pleasant way to create a concise result.
There couldn't have been a better introduction in the album than "Six Ways to Sunday": pleasant, positive and with a catchy chorus, it sets up the mood of what is going to follow in the rest of the album. On a similar energetic tone along with the addition of some banjo chords, "Leave a Scar" is probably the band's declaration of existence: "[...] All I leave behind me is a rag of old guitars, I may not change the world but I'm gonna leave a scar.. [...]".
From the energetic opening of "Six Ways To Sunday" up to the velvety ballad "Up The Road", the acoustic ride is more than just pleasant. The band sings about romantic flirts ("Εverybody Knows She's Mine"), break-ups ("Pretty Little Lie"), outlaws ("Lucky Seven") and various other aspects of the typical Southern ideology. Probably the best example of this is the beautifully crafted "One Horse Town", a stand-out track which describes the dreary dreams of province kids who are left with no choice but [..]"swallow their pride in order to make their family proud" in a preordained for them future.
Blackberry Smoke did not devote their enthusiasm to impress their audience in a one-off act. They have used their influences to record an honest rock'n'roll album in order to honour their Southern idols, not the most common in our days. And boy, how good they have achieve that!
