The radio listener’s ear is fickle. What crawls out of the woodwork one day can just as quickly and unassumingly become passé. Too often, bands try unsuccessfully to reinvent themselves to fit the mold of what the 18- to 25-year-old demographic is listening to. It’s refreshing, then, when you get to listen to an album from a band like Sister Hazel, whose Absolutely, due out October 10, contains the same sound that you remember on the radio (in their case, “All For You” from the 1997 album …Somewhere More Familiar) and haven’t heard since.
The album’s lead single, “Mandolin Moon,” immediately reminds listeners how their country-fried rock became popular in the first place. Sister Hazel enlists the help of country star Shawn Mullins on the track; his smooth backing vocals are a perfect compliment to the quick, driving guitars that set the song’s sunny mood. Similarly, “Shame,” a shrug of the shoulders to an ex who can’t stop bickering, is one of those songs that you can’t help but roll your windows down as you drive down an empty road.
Sister Hazel succeeds in the quite moments, too, showing that southern sensibility has a place in a world where alternapop bands mumble their melancholy over underproduced tracks (don’t get me wrong, I love that, too). The piano ballad “This Kind of Love” is a determined celebration of romance. “Tear by Tear,” the longest song on the album by more than a minute over the others, is a moving commentary on how confusing the world can be, and how relentlessly it continues to turn despite our struggles.
I’m stuck in a market that doesn’t even pay much attention to those alternapop bands, and so it’s hard to imagine that Sister Hazel’s album will find a long-term home on any of the shelves at radio stations in my sprawling metropolis. With the exception of “Mandolin Moon,” there isn’t another “All For You” on the album, but what is there should make the legions of fans that turn out to hear Hazel live (they’re never far from the road) giddy, and could even open up the ears of those of us who haven’t given them much thought since the turn of the millennium.
Rating: * * * 1/2 of 5
Note: This review, like most of my music reviews from here on in, was posted to Blogcritics.org last week