The Gobblers Knob

These days, there seems to be a retro honky-tonk style act pop-up every 10 minutes. I regularly listen to acts that really want to be Dale Watson, or really wish that they were as rebelliously reckless as they try to be. I also get plenty of albums that showcase lyrics that are supposed to be funny as the winking lead singer plants his tongue ever so firmly into his decidedly unfunny cheek. I say all of that to now say that when I come across a record that displays the rowdy qualities of a roadhouse combined with a cutting sense of humor, I am genuinely impressed.

Californian, by way of Alabama, Grant Langston’s new album, Stand Up Man, is an album that doesn’t have to aspire to any sort of facade, it merely is what it sets out to be. It seems as though Langston has taken the experiences of recording several previous albums and truly found a formula that works. With guitars that shred a bit of rock as well as roll out a touch of Bakersfield country, Langston avoids tripping himself up and stumbling into the retro-dress-up territory that many aspiring honk-tonkers are stuck in. The two songs that sum up the overall tone of the record, for me at least, are “Burt Reynolds Movie Brawl”, and “Shiner Bock and Vicodin”. Both songs contain humor that never outshines the overall number. Langston isn’t looking to usurp Cletus T. Judd’s shtick by turning a subtle wink into a Gallagher-style smashed watermelon. Ultimately he doesn’t have to, thanks to a crack band that effectively delivers the right tone for songs that aren’t exactly dealing with hard-hitting issues to begin with (even though the broken heart that leads to the events of “Shiner Bock and Vicodin” sounds pretty hard-core.).

Listen to tracks from all of Grant Langston’s albums by clicking here.