BLACKBERRY SMOKE : BE RIGHT HERE

1. Dig A Hole
2. Hammer And The Nail
3. Like It Was Yesterday
4. Be So Lucky
5. Azalea
6. Don't Mind If I Do
7. Watcha Know Good
8. Other Side Of The Light
9. Little Bit Crazy
10. Barefoot Angel

Label : 3 Legged Records

Release Date : February 16, 2024

Length : 40:07

Review (Blues Magazine) : Na 3 jaar wachten zijn de heren van Blackberry Smoke dan eindelijk terug met hun 8ste volwaardige studioalbum ‘Be Right Here’. Deze americana/country/southernrock band uit Atlanta , Georgia weet mij opnieuw te boeien met een diversiteit aan songs. De opener Dig A Hole gaat goed van start met een lekkere rocksong met vette riffs om daarna door te gaan met het kortste nummer van het album maar swingende ‘ Hammer And The Nail ’. ‘Like It Was Yesterday ’ is mijn favoriete nummer dat zomaar op een Eagles album had kunnen staan. In het relaxte “Be So Lucky ’ en ‘Watcha Know Good ’ refereren aan ‘Tom Petty’ maar hebben toch de specifieke Blackberry Smoke signatuur. ‘Azalea’ is heerlijk magisch acoustisch met een subtiel orgeltje. ‘Don't Mind If I Do ’ is weer een lekkere rocker en ‘Other Side Of The Light' is een rustig liedje met mooie slidegitaar. ‘Little Bit Crazy ’ opent met een A capella koortje van de Black Bettys waarna een lekkere rocksong zich ontvouwt. Tenslotte bezingt Charlie Starr de liefde voor zijn vrouw in het prachtige ‘Barefoot Angel’. Geheel gezien staan er op dit album prima nummers van een band die weet waar Abraham de mosterd vandaan haalt. Steve Cobb tenslotte produceerde het album wederom fantastisch. De band is dit jaar éénmalig te aanschouwen op 17 september in de 013 te Tilburg. Rennen maar.

Review (Saving Country Music) : Southern rock stalwarts Blackberry Smoke didn’t need to go very far to find inspiration for their new album. When the longtime drummer and big brother of the band Brit Turner was diagnosed with brain Cancer, it helped put the things that truly matter in life into sharp perspective. We all get so consumed by chasing silly goals, trying to keep up in the rat race, and winning arguments online that we lose focus on the important things. But one of the greatest lessons in life is to Be Right Here and soak up the precious moments as they happen. That became the overarching theme for the band’s new Dave Cobb-produced album. At this point, Blackberry Smoke has nothing more they need to prove to anyone. They’re an institution, and the Georgia natives have stepped up to fill the shoes of the Southern rock bands that have come before them. There’s no need to reinvent the genre or to reinvent themselves. You just have to find the groove and lay down in it. That’s what they do for the 10 tracks of this new album. There’s plenty of that heavy, sludgy sound we’ve come to expect from The Smoke, and this is the style of music that tends to be right in the Dave Cobb wheelhouse. The punchy rhythm and cry baby tone of the opening track “Dig a Hole” launches you straight into the right mood. “Don’t Mind If I Do” is a clinic on the Southern rock groove while also slyly shifting through rhythms. The second half of “Other Side Of The Light” gives you all those great Dickey Betts vibes, especially when the harmonic guitar lines kick in. The music is great, but so is the message of dispensing with the bullshit of the present tense. Whether it’s the political polarization of the moment, or people who love to argue for the sake of arguing, songs like “Dig a Hole” and the slyly-written lyrical hook of “Whatcha Know Good” are here to remind you to side step all that noise, to understand no matter if they’re coming from the left or right they’re likely more focused on their own self-interests, and to let the friction slide off your back and not distract you from the real priorities in life. Be Right Here also serves up a few more intimate and understated moments. Co-written between frontman Charlie Starr and well-known songwriter Travis Meadows, the song “Azalea” is about watching your baby girl grow up and move away, and the fear that comes with this experience. “Other Side of the Light” is one of a handful of songs that start on the acoustic guitar, getting you to listen more intently to the lyrics. The days of striking a power chord, letting it ring, and hoping that’s enough to keep the audience entertained are quickly fading, for better or worse. This is the era of the earnest songwriter with a mostly in-tune acoustic guitar braying about his feelings into a condenser mic. In a few songs, the band seems to want to meet this moment. But there is something that still feels slightly dated or stale about Be Right Here, while a few of the songs feel like a fastball that’s just shy of its top velocity. There aren’t really any “bad” tracks on Be Right Here, but a few do feel a bit pedestrian from a lack of energy or enthusiasm from a band that doesn’t have the same hunger they did when they first started out. That said, you can tell the songs of Be Right Here will probably be best appreciated live when you can lose yourself in waves of tone and rhythm. Paul Jackson and Benji Shanks on guitar, bassist Richard Turner, Brandon Still on keys, and Preston Holcomb joining Brit Turner on drums, they’re like a band of brothers, and sisters when you add appearances by backup singer The Black Bettys. There just something about good Southern rock that feels warm and assuring when it hits you just right. There are ample opportunities to catch that feeling and bask in it, and to enjoy the moment on Be Right Here.

Review (Americana UK) : Having recorded their seventh album ‘You Hear Georgia’, during the most intense and restrictive period of the Covid pandemic, the boys from Georgia chose to hold off releasing the album until it was safe to go back on the road. A similar approach has been required with this new release ‘Be Right Here’, having been completed almost a year ago but held back until now due to drummer Brit Turner being diagnosed with a brain tumour for which he is still receiving treatment whilst remaining an active force within the band. Produced like its predecessor by Dave Cobb, whose previous collaborations include such luminaries as Jason Isbell and Chris Stapleton, and recorded mostly at Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A, ‘Be Right Here’, continues in a similar vain with Cobb managing to eke out a little more creative variety and colour to the traditional blues-based southern rock that the band have become such fine exponents of over the last two decades. Those trademarks are very much to the fore on the opening three numbers where ‘Dig A Hole’ kicks off proceedings with its heavy psychedelic riff playing counterpoint to Charlie Starr’s vocals that conjures up memories of eighties arena rockstar Billy Squier. This is quickly followed by the blue-collared anthem of ‘Hammer And The Nail‘, before some tasty slide guitar adorns ‘Like It Was Yesterday’, whilst all treading familiar territory. It takes until track four ‘Be So Lucky‘, for the breakneck pace to ease and deliver up a slice of Tom Petty-styled melodic rock complete with catchy chorus and exquisite guitar playing from Paul Jackson which is followed by one of the album’s standout tracks ‘Azalea’. Here the acoustic arrangement and sagacious lyrics that house the album’s title, conjures up memories of early seventies Allman Brothers, or even Kansas and their classic AOR number ‘Dust In The Wind’, as Starr offers up his pearls of wisdom “half the learning’s in the leaving”, whilst some sublime mandolin playing acts like a prism showering colour over this delightful track. The subtle mix continues, initially with country rock overtones, tongue-in-cheek humour, and infectious chorus of ‘Don’t Mind If I Do’, before ‘Watchu Know Good’, finds the band knee-deep in a swamp sodden, behind-the-beat groove, reminiscent of the great J.J. Cale or the maestro Tony Joe White, complete with some lazy slide guitar. That same instrument impressively underpins the next track ‘Other Side Of The Light’, though at a slightly quicker tempo which is maintained through to the next song, the blues/gospel soaked ‘Little Bit Crazy’, with a riff that’s straight-out of Keith Richards back catalogue along with some wonderful backing vocals from ‘The Black Betty’s’, whose contribution over several tracks throughout the album helps add a greater dimension to the vocal arrangements. The rock ballad ‘Barefoot Angel’, brings the album to a close with its gentler acoustic verse leading to a rousing if somewhat predictable anthemic chorus. Blackberry Smoke have never aspired to re-invent the wheel, more than happy to wear their influences proudly on their sleeve, but here in the third decade of the twenty-first century there are few if any better exponents of country rock and with the help of Cobb at the helm they have managed to expand their sound whilst still staying true to their musical values. Two decades and eight albums into their career and ‘Be Right Here’, may well be Blackberry Smoke’s finest offering to date.