Outlaws
Dixie Highway
(Steamhammer)
Ever since their ‘comeback’ eight years ago, America icon band, Outlaws, have been mining such a hard rock, southern-grown resilience, that their fans have taken to calling them, ‘Southern Rock’s Last Band Standing.’ Along with bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Charlie Daniels Band, The Allman Brothers, and Blackfoot, the Outlaws carved their own way up into the hearts and minds of popular rock, laying out more of that southern sound so unique to all these bands who could mix boogie woogie, swamp and down-home blues in such an American fashion.
On their new release, Dixie Highway, the 7-piece maintains that ethos and gives forth on some harmony-laden commercial rock hits.
Name dropping great southern rockers on the opener, “Southern Rock Will Never Die,” we get lots of lyrics here that reveal just exactly where this ‘seasoned’ group are in their life and career…humbled to be still playing, but rockin’ as strong as ever. Tunes like the solid riffery of “Dark Horse Run,” is certainly one of the standouts and proves the point of what mature rockers can manage, and manage well. The instrumental “Showdown,” sees the band at their most complex noodling; it’s another gem.
Besides the newer tunes, we even get the band remaking, “Heavenly Blues,” from their 1977 Hurry Sundown album and dipping back to unearth a song they never recorded. Written by original bassist Frank O’Keefe, “Windy City Blues,” plucked from a 1972 demo of the tune, is a-rockin’ tight blues track and certainly one of the best here.Â
Forty-five years and counting, the band that gave us “There Goes Another Love Song,” and “Green Grass & High Tides,” pretty much deliver another swampy milestone with Dixie Highway.
