J Roddy Walston & The Business
J Roddy Walston & The Business
(Vagrant)

At its best and its worst, J Roddy Walston and The Business’ self-titled album is essentially a tribute to classic, down and dirty Southern rock and roll.

The best songs are “Don’t Break the Needle,” which boogies like the Black Crowes, except that it’s catchier than anything they’ve done this decade, and “Full Growing Man,” which makes up for the lack of glam in most modern day rock.

Unfortunately, other songs on the album, like “Pigs & Pearls,” sound like uninspired country-rock. I understand wanting to keep with their Southern roots, but sometimes they get so mired in swamp muck that the songs can’t crawl out. “Brave Man’s Death” is intriguing at first as the singer bellows “My father put a shame in me/Said he wouldn’t put his name in me” over ascending keyboard notes. This promising beginning however soon turns into an overblown faux-epic that loses its spark.

While “I Don’t Wanna Hear It” might be cheesy, its still fun and makes you want to dance and sing along. “Uh Oh Rock & Roll” is a different story though, as it features mostly unintelligible lyrics, which are hollered over some Lynyrd Skynyrd-reject and quickly begins to sound like it has more in common with Kid Rock than classic rock. Everything good and bad about the album, I feel, can be summed up with the aforementioned track: “Uh Oh Rock & Roll.”