What? There's only one couch in the free clinic's waiting room? Just kidding.

I’m not gonna lie. Every so often I want, and even need, to pop in a record that isn’t some slow, quiet folk-y think piece. Every so often I want to get pumped-up for Friday night, a weekend at the lake or even an afternoon on the patio. When that need for loud and loose encouragement arises, many of my favorite artists and albums simply will not do. Ray Lamontagne? Nope. Swell Season? Nope. How about that new A.A. Bondy record that I raved about last week? Heck naw.

For those of you looking to put a record on that just rocks out with no pretense of anything other than rocking out – southern style, I give you Blackberry Smoke. Their album, Little Piece of Dixie comes out on Sept 29 from Rock Ridge Music. The lead single, which was previously on their independently released EP also named Little Peice of Dixie, is “Good One Comin’ On”. The story of a group of friends looking to get lit on a weekend at the lake while singing along to great songs from the past accomplishes exactly what it’s aiming to. One listen and this song will likely rattle around in your brain-pan for some time.

Click here to listen to “Good One Comin’ On” from Little Piece of Dixie

A.A. Bondy’s new album, When the Devil’s Loose (Fat Possum - due next week), is absolutely beautiful. I would like to come up with a more elaborate way of explaing how I feel about the album - and rest assured I will - but for the most part it’s just really beautiful.

Bondy employs his gentle rasp quite effectively, as he gives a restrained performance that never feels understated or whiny. Most songs have a pleasantly meandering vibe that never sacrifices the song’s focus. “A Slow Parade” displays a hazy dreaminess that puts you into a different place as you dream along. This is not a summer-backyard-BBQ-out-by-the-pool-record, but an out-on-the-porch-late-at-night-with-something-to-slowly-sip-in-your-glass kind of album. For those of you familiar with Bondy’s previous album, American Hearts, this comes as no great shock. The use of electric guitar on many tracks where many other artists would’ve typically played acoustic does help give those tracks a punch without murdering the subtlety. When the acoustic guitar is employed, there is a raw crispness to the strums that we also here with many of the drum beats. Obviously, the production of the album and it’s vibe was dead-on.

Lyrically, we have another great set of stories from Bondy. My favorite story from the album is “Oh the Vampyre”. If you listen to it straight forward, we seem to have a tale of a vampire who just needs to have a drink and has a clear understanding of when he needs to be in and/or out of his coffin. When he sings, “With a vampire’s kiss/I’ve got a vampire’s heart/now I don’t roll out of bed ’til after dark” then later he continues with, “The dew is on the grass and now I’m late for bed“. One could simply say that Bondy is just fulfilling his need to imagine himself as some movie vampire. Of course, when we hear Bondy sing, “I could drink the world and never get my fill” and then “You see it aint my fault/that I am this way“ one can easily get the feeling that there just might be something lurking in the shadows of this story that isn’t as obvious. That mystery is but one of the aspects that continue to make me have a hard time describing the album in any other way than beautiful.

A.A. Bondy – “I Can See The Pines Are Dancing” from When The Devil’s Loose.