Blackie & The Rodeo Kings’ music covers a number of bases, all with their roots set deeply and firmly in North America. Honky Tonk, Country, Blues and Folk are the main ingredients but Blackie et al also have an ear for pop’s melodies and rock’s meaty delivery.
Each of the three mainstays of the group – Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden and Tom Wilson - enjoy successful solo careers in their own right and their day jobs seem to be writing tunes for other artists. Linden’s CV is particularly interesting, having worked on the ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ soundtrack and acted in the Coen’s Intolerable Cruelty. Tom Wilson has gigged with Ron Sexsmith, David Gray and the legendary Joe Strummer. On paper, this could be an interesting train to take.
Unfortunately, everything is virtually derailed from the outset as opener ‘Swinging From The Chains of Love’ puts Billy Ray Cyrus and his mullet at the forefront of my mind. Honky Tonk has never appealed, its crimes against the ears most tellingly committed by Mr. Cyrus’ ‘Achy Breaky Heart’, back in the days when line-dancing became the new karaoke in dodgy pubs up and down the UK. Skip a track and on comes ‘Water or Gasoline’, sounding like Shania Twain’s ‘Man, I Feel Like A Woman’.
And so it goes for most of the album. ‘Bark’ plays like a musical billboard advertising the compositional merits of the group’s individual members rather than a concerted group effort. Whilst there is genuine variety across the album’s fourteen tracks and everything is competently played and arranged, nothing really sparks or stays with you. There is too much sheen in the production and it’s obvious that mid-state M.O.R US radio is the frequency to which Blackie is attuning its sound.
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Across most tracks Blackie’s primary concerns are love and how it lifts you (‘Swinging…’, ‘You’re So Easy To Love’) or bites you in the bum (‘If I Catch You Cryin’’, ‘Lock All The Doors’, ‘House of Sin’) and how they’re just good ol’ boys, growing old disgracefully while plying their trade with a twinkle in their collective eye (‘Stoned’, ‘Born To Be A Traveller’).
Blackie & The Rodeo Kings are a competent outfit whose professional sound should appeal to the mainstream fan of American (they’re Canadian by the way) Country/Folk/Blues, who also likes a streak of pop in the mix.
Outside of that demographic there’s little here to interest anyone else.
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