Last month MV went to a prog rock gig. There was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was very good, but at one point in the show the star said this: “I know a lot of people don’t like this song, but I don’t care. I don’t make songs for my audience, once you start pandering to your fans you cease to become an artist and become an entertainer.”
Now, there’s two ways of looking at this, and you kinda see his point, but the thought remained at the time, and is still there now: there’s nothing wrong with entertainment and there’s nothing wrong with entertaining the people that buy your damn stuff.
The reason for mentioning this now is that while listening to album number six from Blackberry Smoke you can only reflect on their honesty. It’s not so much they are pandering to their audience, more that they are their audience and they only know one way to do it.
It’s funny too, how the world has caught up since “ The Whippoorwill” broke them in the UK (and we woke up the fact it was their third record and they weren’t just overnight sensations) and there was all the tedious “are they country or are they rock?” questions. None of that matters anymore, they sell out big venues and they are – along with obvious contemporaries Whiskey Myers – the kings of southern rock.
In that context, to be fair, “Find A Light” feels like a victory lap, a ticker tape parade, a celebration if you like of everything they’ve done up to this point. It’s 13 songs are exactly what you expect from them – hell, more than that, it’s what you want from them.
That’s not to say that it all follows the same formula, in fact there is a hypnotic, fuzzy side to “Flesh And Bone” but Charlie Starr – who wrote or co-wrote all these songs- has the kind of voice that suggests he was reared on “Simple Man” and he’s only going to sound one way.
“Run Away From It All” is a classic in all senses. At once familiar, but brilliantly, classily done. Destined to be a real favourite, there is a papable sense of contentment. “Don’t you worry about a thing,” sings Starr, “baby we can run away from it all” and there is an escapism – and yes entertainment – here.
“The Crooked Kind” has a kind of garage rock urgency about it, and the line about “got to grab hold of something” is perhaps a reminder to themselves to keep riding this wave, while “Medicate My Mind” makes no bones about the fact that it is as blissed out as a man can get, and it ain’t moving for nobody.
The fact is, that like AC/DC, say, or Iron Maiden, BS have a natural way of sounding. “I’ve Got This Song” is a gorgeous blue collar ballad, with a country tinge and it sounds perfect, “Best Seat In The House” rivals Eric Church for the rockin’ honky-tonk title, and the quite brilliant “I’ll Keep Ramblin’” (featuring Robert Randolf) casts them as fire and brimstone preachers of the Rock N Roll variety.
“Seems So Far” deals with the last ten years in laid back fashion, and the big ol’ groove to “Lord Strike Me Dead” is not one to mess with and the sound of summer is all over “Let Me Down” which sees Amanda Shires provide fine harmonies, but the feel is at odds with lyrics – about the only time on this record where anyone sounds fragile.
A collection full of highlights probably has its absolute gem in the form of “Nobody Gives A Damn” – this album’s “Shakin’ Hands With The Holy Ghost” perhaps? – but it provides an erudite attack on those who chase fleeting fame.
Not something you could ever level at Blackberry Smoke, that. They’ve paid their dues and they will reap the rewards, which is why “Till The Wheels Fall Off” is as unapologetic as it gets, and why “Mother Mountain” is so happy to sound like it came out in the late 1960s and was written in a commune somewhere in the desert.
So this record has its subtleties of course, but put bluntly, you don’t buy a Blackberry Smoke record, or go and see them live to be “challenged”, there’s a time and place for that, maybe. Here, though, you want this. You want “Find A Light”, moreover, so do they, and that’s why this is so very good.
Rating 8.5/10
