The Georgian country rock band Blackberry Smoke are going on nearly two and a half decades in the industry, and in that time have brought some absolutely incredible music to the scene. Now eight albums into their illustrious career, the band show no sign of slowing down! We’ve already checked out the singles released on our YouTube, and safe to say they’re pretty great. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the whole album!
Opening on the lead single is always a great bet, and few are better than ‘Dig a Hole’. The first time I heard this track was actually at The Long Road last year, and have loved it ever since! We’ve since done a reaction video to it, alongside two other of the singles, and I remember praising it highly then too. It’s a steady-tempo, swaggering southern rock track through and through. It doesn’t do anything massively unexpected, but also doesn’t really need to, it’s just a great track! The riffing is a massive highlight, and the vocals are catchy as anything! A great start!
Another single, ‘Hammer and the Nail’, is up next. It’s another foot-stomping, awesome country rock song. It’s an infectiously catchy chorus that will go down insanely well live, I’m sure. Honestly though all the vocals in the track are catchy. I love the melody between the vocals and guitar in the verses, nearly following each other. We also get an awesome little guitar solo tucked in the middle, fitting the tone of the song perfectly. Out of the three singles I reacted to, this was the one that stuck with me the least. However, after listening to it in context with the album, I have to say I loved it a lot more!
The first non-single of the album, ‘Like it was Yesterday’, is just as good as the singles. It does have a slightly more chilled out, more country vibe than the previous two tracks, though. There’s still a touch of rock to it, but it’s more in the guitar work and tone. It’s more Lynyrd Skynyrd than heavier Cadillac Three, that’s for sure! And that’s certainly not a bad thing, it’s a great song that is gonna be stuck in my head for days to come. It’s a track that easily makes our playlist!
‘Be So Lucky’ chills out the vibes even more. The main focus is on the steady, cleanish guitar riff and Charlie’s vocals, a simple drum, bass and keys backing. Even if it does feel a little bigger in the choruses, which is awesome, it still has a stripped-back feel to it all. It’s almost a ballad track. I LOVE the harmonies on the chorus vocals, too. I really love the lyrics as well. The band have always been fantastic lyric writers, and this is up there with ‘One Horse Town’ for me. And it has one of my favourite guitar solos on the album, simple yet so very effective. It’s another awesome track!
‘Azalea’ is the most recent single from the album, and the only one I haven’t had the time to check out yet. It’s another chilled out track, almost diving into more folk territory than even country. I love the almost Newton Faulkner riff that runs through the majority of it, and the vocals fit perfectly over the top of it. It’s a beautiful, simple track that surprisingly fits perfectly on the album and feels right at home among any other Blackberry Smoke songs. And it’s a really great choice to have this as the midpoint of the album, too!
‘Don’t Mind If I Do’ picks the pace immediately back up again in the best way. Going back to their blues rock sound, reminding me heavily of ‘Rock and Roll Again’. It’s a very Status Quo riff and the subtle piano in the back is amazing. And again, the chorus is a massive highlight of the track, being made for massive arenas and festivals. We also get another awesome guitar solo, again fitting the tone perfectly. I love how easily the band can transition between different sounds and feels, and they do it effortlessly on this album. It’s another track that makes our playlist, it’s awesome!
The main riff for ‘Whatcha Know Good’ is a fantastic one, a country-blues masterclass of writing and playing. I love the darker, moodier tone it gives the whole song. The whole track has this slower, attitude-dripping feel and pace to it that I instantly fell in love with. It’s such a simple yet incredibly effective track, and one that I’ll have on a hell of a lot in the coming weeks and months!
‘Other Side of the Light’ is another slower, acoustic track like ‘Azalea’. It’s a fantastic track with one of the best choruses on the album. And it has some more of those awesome lyrics I was talking about earlier, being fantastically uplifting. However, I can’t bring up great choruses without talking about the following track, ‘Little Bit Crazy’. It’s up there with one of my favourite tracks they’ve ever done, and it’s all because of that incredible chorus and all the vocals going on in it. Heck, it opens on the awesome trio of vocals, setting the tone for the track perfectly. And when done with the band, it sounds MASSIVE. The verses and solo are also awesome, but I can’t get over that chorus. It’s a track that easily makes our playlist and damn, I need to see it live!
The closing track, ‘Barefoot Angel’, somehow draws together all the sounds previously on the album into one epic track. Whether it’s the fuzzy southern rock riffing, slower acoustic verses or the huge, arena-filling choruses, it feels like the perfect crescendo. And again, the lyrics are incredible, a beautiful love song. I love the Synyrd-style bridge and outro too, it feeling almost like jamming than anything else. What a fantastic way to close out the album!
Overall: I loved this! I know I would, given how much I love the band and enjoyed the singles I’d already heard. However, to finally be able to sit down with the full album was awesome. Every track is amazing, and it’s arranged in the perfect order; never once getting boring. The band simply do their own thing and it comes across so well on track and in a live setting. I cannot recommend this album enough to anyone into rock or country music, you’ll find something to enjoy for sure! And I’d easily put it up there alongside The Whippoorwill and Like an Arrow as my favourite releases the band have put out.
The score: 9/10