Well howdy y’all can you give me a great big yeeeeeehaaaawwwww!? Ok – so don’t. Listen – I don’t like country music all that much. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a nice pint of beer here or there (because I do) and it is not because I don’t like dogs or children (I do like dogs) and it isn’t even the fact that I have never been scorned by a woman or some great, life-altering tragedy befell my pappy (because in both cases very true). Crikey – it isn’t even because I haven’t chased a woman for twenty years just to find scorn and hatred (I haven’t chased but plenty of scorn and hatred). The reason I don’t like country is due to the utter repetition of it. Unlike Rock, Metal and yes – even Pop, Country has this mold that it fits in to snug like an old shoe. There needs to be change to the genre and “The Next Nashville Star” and Billy Ray Cyrus certainly do not help the cause.
I know what you’re thinking – Rev. Bob and the Darkness – they could be a GWAR clone. Their name certainly does not mesh well with the genre that gave us Brooks and Dunn, Alabama, Toby Keith and so on. That alone is refreshing although it makes it seem like we are either getting some tripped out metal group into self-defecating humor or comedy spoken word. Neither is true.
Rev. Bob can bring it in an interesting way. The vocals are not the cleanest I have heard from a country group. They sometimes do not match the musical ensemble. And I really hate to say it – but do NOT do the duets. They do NOT work. In fact – they suck. Rev. Bob’s voice is deep – like – SUPER deep. It has a nice tone. The female backup doing the duet with him is too high and it sounds so damn disjointed and bad that it should never, EVER be done again. Leave it to Bob and everything will be fine. Otherwise “Walk Out on my Own” is a good song with a great meaning. The musicality is there and the vocals are SPOT on when the woman is NOT singing. It is hard to get past that though.
Rev. Bob & The Darkness sounds a lot like Hootie and the Blowfish on some tracks which is interesting. The on other tracks like “What I Do” is a very old school sounding country song with a female lead and male backups sounding off in a chorus line. That’s the sort of country music my mom used to listen to forty years ago – that I hated.
Other tracks are along the same lines as “What I Do” but downplay the chorus line scenario which is good because those are the times when the group shines. Ignore the duets. There are several people in the group that take the reigns of the lead vocalist which is AWESOME because they got some GREAT singers. “Sun Doesn’t Shine” is a fantastic example of a GOOD country song – and even where a duet WORKS. Follow the formula of that track more often.
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