Hank Williams III

Hank Williams III

Straight To Hell

[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

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