Corsicana Lemonade <\/i>was a solid album, one that betrayed its influences at times but held up well as a current example of Southern rock and a good-time front-porch beer-drinking disc at sunset. Stiff<\/i>, the follow-up, falls well short of these criteria.<\/p>\n
Part of this is due, no doubt, to two band members being replaced; new guitarist Jonathan Horne and drummer Jeffrey Olson are now on board to assist singer\/guitarist James Petralli and bassist Steve Terebecki. But the main reason is in how the band is content to copy their influences and not add on them, to the point where you can quickly identify what the guys were listening to on the radio that day. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the songs are bad \u2013 they\u2019re breezy and\/or fun where needed \u2013 but they don\u2019t have their own personality\u2026save for the bad song titles. \u201cHa Ha Ha Ha (Yeah)\u201d rewrites Grand Funk. \u201cHolda You (I\u2019m Psycho)\u201d is a Zeppelin tribute. \u201cThere\u2019s A Brain In My Head\u201d mixes \u201860s British Invasion with a bit of Grateful Dead. \u201cTake It Easy\u201d brings Smokey Robinson and Motown to mind instantly. \u201cThank You\u201d is sort of a Steely Dan song with a prog-rock introduction and a swirling tie-dye chorus. \u201c(I\u2019m The One) Big Big Fun\u201d brings a very, very slight white funk to the table.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s it. Really. I couldn\u2019t tell you anything else about these songs beyond that. It\u2019s essentially a Pandora \u201870s playlist. It\u2019s not until the final few tracks that the band\u2019s actual voice kicks into gear on \u201cReal Deal Momma\u201d and \u201cMirrored In Reverse,\u201d which use the foundations of the band\u2019s idols to create something more individual. In a sense, this is a debut by a new band, so it makes sense to revisit the past to find a new voice going forward. <\/p>\n
Stiff <\/i>is a quick listen at 35 minutes, but it\u2019s hardly a necessary one, especially after the promises of Corsicana Lemonade<\/i>. Here\u2019s hoping the next album with this lineup finds its own path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9775],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-44459","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-white-denim","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44459"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44459"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}