{"id":45328,"date":"2018-06-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/hellfire\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:31:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:31:30","slug":"hellfire","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/hellfire\/","title":{"rendered":"Hellfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a year after his very strong self-titled debut<\/a>, LA-based \u201coutsider country\u201d singer-songwriter Ben Bostick is back with a collection that wastes no time declaring its intentions: this is music to raise hell by.<\/p>\n

That said, if the above description sounds like a formula for a dozen party anthems full of Dad-pun-worthy punchlines set to paint-by-numbers poppy guitar hooks, then you have clearly been listening to too much mainstream country, which this most decidedly isn\u2019t. Bostick\u2019s Hellfire<\/i> is down and dirty and ferociously dedicated to telling stories that dig deep into the agony and anger that drive this particular kind of alcohol-fueled misbehavior. Because it\u2019s Bostick, it\u2019s also full of sharp lines and incisive observations on the human condition, all set to muscular honky-tonk country-rock that\u2019s hard-edged enough to knock Hank Williams\u2019 whiskey glass clean off the bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Show Blues\u201d is an old-school barroom stomper about a working man going on a bender: \u201cI took a day off and then I took four more \/ Been drunk since I left, and chain-smokin\u2019 Marlboros \/ And part of me thinks I ain\u2019t ever gonna make it home.\u201d The thing is, if you take this album as an 11-track whole, the narrator is right\u2014he never does make it home, and the remaining 10 tracks are in the same vein, dominated by heavy numbers celebrating the darkness that drives men to self-destruct.<\/p>\n

The title track is a dance-worthy singalong about a hardcore drinker\u2019s spectacular fall into the gutter. A taste of the finger-snapping, hand-clapping second verse says it all: \u201cFeelin\u2019 sinful, needin\u2019 grace \/ Sunday mornin\u2019, knew the place \/ So I stumbled into church and sat down for a spell \/ A few minutes in, I felt free of sin \/ So I polished off my bottle of bathtub gin \/ And got stinkin\u2019, dirty, awful drunk as hell \/ Yeah right there in the back pew I got drunk as hell\u2026 Hellfire, that\u2019s where I\u2019m bound.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Good Fool\u201d adds organ and cowbell, with Bostick declaring \u201cI\u2019m not a bad boy, I\u2019m a bad, bad man… You\u2019re dancing with the devil when you dance with this no good fool\u201d to a driving, surging, stormy rocker. About time for a weepy ballad, you might think\u2026 but not on this album. Instead, Bostick goes full-tilt barroom boogie with the double-time blowout \u201cBlow Off Some Steam.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he does ease off the gas pedal, it\u2019s for a clever mid-tempo lament; \u201cIt Ain\u2019t Cheap Being Poor\u201d declares Bostick as his band responds back with big, bellowing call-and-answer vocals. Once again, you\u2019re back in the barroom, with beer on the floor and whiskey on the counter.<\/p>\n

The second half of the album\u2014as with Ben Bostick<\/i>, the cover art divides the album into two parts, like a vinyl LP\u2014never lets up. \u201cTornado\u201d is as close as things get to lighthearted this time around, a witty, upbeat tune about a woman who completely blows up the narrator\u2019s life, yet he still wants her (because that\u2019s how it is sometimes). \u201cThe Other Side Of Wrong\u201d is hard-charging, whip-smart and utterly unpretentious, not to mention burning with energy from start to finish. \u201cSo I\u2019m sittin\u2019 on this barstool in this dirty downtown bar \/ Drinkin\u2019 up my money and pukin\u2019 in the bathroom stall \/ A man of my disposition should steer clear of alcohol \/ But if I didn\u2019t make bad decisions, I wouldn\u2019t make no decisions at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWork, Sleep, Repeat\u201d takes the basic approach of \u201cTornado\u201d while shifting the subject matter, a working man\u2019s lament that moves at a loping trot and occasionally brings a little Elvis whimsy into Bostick\u2019s lead vocal. Meanwhile, the narrator of \u201cHow Much Lower Can I Go\u201d is driven to drink by a lover\u2019s betrayal, yet even then he\u2019s insightful: \u201cEven though I know it\u2019s wrong \/ I wish my pain upon the world \/ I curse the lives of lucky men \/ And into this hell I hope they\u2019re hurled.\u201d And what happens after he lands headfirst in the gutter? Just the title of \u201cFeeling Mean\u201d tells the story; it\u2019s all drinking and fighting and boiling-over anger from there as Bostick works his deep voice into a big, beefy Jim-Morrison-circa-\u201cLA Woman\u201d bellow.<\/p>\n

The title and lyric to closer \u201cThe Outsider\u201d make it feel like a theme song for Bostick\u2019s whole artistic identity, but musically it\u2019s the outlier here, a growling, thumping hard rock number with distorted vocals, an adrenalized blowout finish that feels disconnected from the traditional country roots of most of Bostick\u2019s tunes.<\/p>\n

Major kudos are due here to Bostick\u2019s entire supporting cast, which includes Kyle Lalone (lead guitar, background vocals), Luke Miller (piano and organ), Perry Morris (drums), Cory Tramontelli (bass), and John Would (engineer and co-producer with Bostick); there isn\u2019t a note out of place on this ribboned-with-energy album, and every tune is arranged and played with genuine fire.<\/p>\n

Hellfire<\/i> offers a darker, heavier, more tightly focused extrapolation of Ben Bostick\u2019s self-titled debut, a rollicking primer on self-destruction set to a toe-tapping honky-tonk beat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10172],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45328","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ben-bostick","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45328","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51973,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45328\/revisions\/51973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45328"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45328"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}