Blackberry Smoke – Be Right Here
Release Date: 16th February 2024
Label: 3 Legged Records
Order/Stream
Genre: Country Rock, Southern Rock, Folk Rock.
FFO: The Black Crowes, Allman Brothers, The Cadillac Three.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Let’s cut straight to the chase.
If you like Blackberry Smoke’s previous output. Good news! Nothing has changed.
If you didn’t like Blackberry Smoke’s previous output. Bad news! Nothing has changed.
The seventh long player from these good old Georgia boys shows absolutely no desire to step out of their comfortable, well-worn furrow. They established several albums ago that their sound was going to be more on the Country-side of the Country Rock genre, and that’s the musical porch on which they have pulled up their high back rockers and rested their cowboy boots on the rail.
Packed with ten heartfelt tunes dripping in blue-collar honesty and sun-faded Americana, Be Right Here feels like the kind of album that would go down a storm in Bob’s Country Bunker (The Blues Brothers), and therein lies the problem if you’re not already a fan. Undoubtedly seasoned pros at this sort of thing, it all sounds just a bit too safe and a bit too easy and, being brutally honest a bit too dull with very little to keep you listening right to the end.
Opener Dig A Hole has a bit of a heavier psychedelic riff, and some lazy slide guitar tries its best to liven up Watchu Know Good and Other Side of The Light, but overall the whole thing is let down by some cringy lyrics (“The whole world swings a hammer, and I’m the nail”- Hammer And Nail) and the overriding impression that they are quite happy to unhitch the horse from the wagon and let it gently freewheel down the hill back to the comfort of the front porch.
In their defence, the band freely admit that they are not trying to reinvent the wheel, and as stated at the beginning of this review if you’re already on board, you’ll be happy to go along for the ride. The rest of us just might want to wait for the bus.
(2.5 / 5)
