Wallowing in the dark side of Grandpa’s legacy.
Hank Williams III - Straight To Hell Alternative Press - Editorial Intern on 5/25/06 @ 2:44 PM - altpress.com
[2/5] Hank Williams III, who divides his time between honky-tonkin' and thrashing with Superjoint Ritual, hasn't put out a country record in three years. It's too bad he's only written three genuinely good songs in the interval: "The Pills I Took," "My Drinkin' Problem" and "Angel Of Sin." The other 10 tracks on disc one of this two-CD set are festivals of name-dropping (he drinks with David Allan Coe, listens to George Jones and thinks Kid Rock is a poseur--impressed?), rants about how much Hank III hates pop-country, and cartoonishly clichéd drunken-hillbilly pseudo-anthems that veer dangerously close to minstrelsy. His psychobilly-ish strum 'n' twang is occasionally improved by some psychedelic production tricks, reminiscent of Butthole Surfer pals the Bad Livers (disc two, a 40-minute sound collage in which occasional songs poke through, wallows in such excesses). At this point, Hank III is the GG Allin of country--and no matter who your grandfather was, that's disappointing.
(BRUC) Phil Freeman
Official Website: http://www.curb.com
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