THE CADILLAC THREE : COUNTRY FUZZ

  1. Bar Round Here
  2. The Jam
  3. Hard Out Here For A Country Boy
  4. Slow Rollin'
  5. All The Makin's Of A Saturday Night
  6. Crackin' Cold Ones With The Boys
  7. Labels
  8. Raise Hell
  9. Back Home
  10. Dirt Road Nights
  11. Blue El Camino
  12. Jack Daniels' Heart
  13. Why Ya Gotta Go Out Like That
  14. Heat
  15. Whiskey And Smoke
  16. Long After Last Call

Label : Big Machine Records

Release Date : February 7, 2020

Length : 46:53

Review (Sounds Like Nashville) : Country Fuzz, the latest LP from southern rocking trio The Cadillac Three proves that members Jaren Johnston, Neil Mason and Kelby Ray are more than capable of turning any given plain-Jane evening into a rip-roaring night of reckless abandon. The coolers, cups, bottles, trucks and smokes of southern life often star as the key elements to their amp-blasting efforts. On the barn-burning "Hard Out Here for a Country Boy," featuring '90s country great Travis Tritt, fellow country-rocker Chris Janson also joins in to sing "chugging that cold beer, loving that hot girl, living that slow life, in a real fast world." It's tough to imagine this hell-raising tune not being the theme song for the next Dixieland-flavored television reality show. The Cadillac Three; Courtesy of Big Machine Records The Cadillac Three; Courtesy of Big Machine Records The album's title is also something that fits well here. Thick grooves, blaring electric guitars, boot-stomping beats and swampy swagger drip from almost every song. In fact, Country Fuzz, might not be descriptive enough for the aggressive sonic qualities that make this album hurtle from the speakers. Should you question whether or not this is the case, the band is here to quell your doubts as to whether or not they are up to the hard-partying task in most of the album's songs, but especially all-guns-blazing cuts such as "All the Makings of a Saturday Night." The song, quite literally, is one long list of, you guessed it, what one needs for a successful Saturday night party. Cold beer, pretty girl, JBLs, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Jim Beam black label, tall boys, spray tans, Silverados, Mountain Dew, Dierks, Luke Combs, and of course, "Janson" are but a few of the items on the Saturday night checklist. Did someone say "checklist"? The Cadillac Three refuse to risk missing out on any party essentials in "Cracking Cold Ones With My Boys." With the fiery guitar and massive beats behind him, Johnston sings, literally, "Ice, check" and "coolers, check" as he rattles off, yet another beach town Piggly Wiggly shopping list disguised as a party rock tune. The chugging, blues-inflected "Bar Around Here" recalls the 1986 Georgia Satellites classic "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," while "Slow Rollin'" is a sludge-thick number featuring lyrics discussing a black El Camino, a cooler and a case of Coors Light. There's some funky auto-tune stuff going on with Johnston's already slow drawl to add to the song's mood. Over the course of 16 tracks, there are some songs that deviate from the lyrical list theme and the over-arching arena rock vibe. "Back Home" is a pleasant folksy, acoustic-driven tune, while the mid-tempo "Dirt Road Nights" is a pleasingly sentimental story song. The songs work really well in the way the guys certainly intend them to. Any currently devoted fans of The Cadillac Three will rock this record with glee. This is a group that's unapologetically hoping to rile you up, not wind you down, and to that end, they're rather successful. There's no doubt that parties everywhere, whether they're held in parking lots, pastures, backyards or lake shores, would be wise to have pretty much all of Country Fuzz on their playlists.

Review (Louder Sound) : Four albums in, and The Cadillac Three are experimenting with Philip Glass-style atmospherics, and dour lyrics exploring the perilous state of the planet's changing climate. Just kidding. Of course they're not! The CadillacThree are a band very sure of who they are and what's expected of them, so everything you need to know about Country Fuzz is right there in the title, which stands as a sort of manifesto for their approach to life. Their country is almost to the point of parody, with a harder southern rock edge to keep things interesting, and there's not a single song on here that doesn't tip its weathered trucker cap to the simple wonders of ice-cold beers and/or whiskey, while the rolling, swaggering Hard Out Here is nothing short of a rollicking game of redneck bingo, taking in brews, "hot girls", NASCAR, smokes, hound dogs and chicken wings for a Nashville full house. Mainly, though, it's the booze that's on their minds and in their hearts, and frontman Jaren Johnston kicks off opener Bar Round Here with a determined hyper-southern drawl of 'Well, I sure am thirsty' before carrying on the blue-collar barfly theme with a ZZ Top-echoing Crackin' Cold Ones With The Boys, a twanging Jack Daniel's Heart and a loping Whiskey And Smoke, with its fist-pumping chorus that speaks of a 2am desperation to catch the bartender's eye. There are also moments of reflection to be found in the midst of the 16 funk-flecked tracks here. Raise Hell, for all its talk of alcohol and Marlboro reds, is drenched with misty-eyed regret, percussion pounding like a hangover and Johnston lamenting how 'it's tough to get in heaven if all you wanna do is raise hell' as if he's had a sudden moment of clarity amid the debauchery. Closing number Long After Last Call, meanwhile, is surprisingly romantic, tender and light on its feet, the band finally discarding the armour of greasy masculinity as they wobble their way home from the local watering hole to the warmth of the company of their better halves. Mainly, this isn't music intended to inspire soul-searching. With its fat, fuzzy riffs and living-for-the-weekend vibe, it's made entirely for boozy barbecues and blokey banter, and maybe the odd trip to a monster truck rally. And you can be sure that The Cadillac Three wouldn't have it any other way.