It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a year since The Allman Betts band released their acclaimed debut Down To The River. However, a year is a long time in music, especially for a band whose life on the road was assured from the first bars they ever laid down together, and Bless Your Heart is the confident, assured work of a band who have made their way across the globe in service of their music. Returning to the famed Muscle Shoals sound Studio and re-enlisting Grammy-Award winning producer Matt Ross-Spang, The Allman Betts Band have wisely maintained the magic of their debut, whilst building upon its foundations, and the results are astounding.
Opening not with a bang, but with a moment of quiet contemplation that wisely focuses the spotlight on the band’s ability to evoke arid American landscapes, Pale Horse Rider is a wonderful entrée into Bless Your Heart. Understated, and yet with some stunning guitar work from Devon Allman, Duane Betts and Johnny Stachela, the track is a cinematic mini-epic that sets the album up as a mature, enthralling body of work. It leads neatly into the Neil-Young-Meets-Bob-Dylan Carolina Song, which opens with crunchy guitars and makes its way directly to a glorious, gospel-infused chorus that is as warm as the moment the sun first breaks through the clouds. Having fully captured the listener’s attention, The Allman Betts Band kick out the jams with King Crawler, the sort of slide-drenched, horn-soaked rock ‘n’ roll outing with which The Blues Brothers would lay waste to whole towns and damn if it doesn’t get your toes tapping. It’s the sound of a band having a wonderful time in each other’s company, and it’s impossible not to get swept up in the ebullience of it all. However, while the joy of the moment is real, there is a price to be paid, and Ashes Of My Lovers details the wreckage of former romances over a dusty, Nick Cave-esque backdrop given greater weight by the deft use of a bone dry harmonica motif. Aware, perhaps, that such a powerful song needs time to digest, Savannah’s Dream is a monstrous instrumental that ebbs and flows over twelve glorious minutes. It takes considerable confidence in these, attention-deficit times to craft such a piece, but the seven-piece make use of every second to detail their America, and it’s a wonderful trip to be sure. As the first half ends, it’s back to the roadhouse for Airboats and Cocaine, which makes great use of the slide guitar and, with John Lum’s taut backbeat driving the piece forward, it’s another track that’ll have the audience tapping along.
Opening the second half of the album, the unashamedly nostalgic Southern Rain has a soulful vibe that is part Clapton, part Robert Cray. The track is neatly paired with the acoustic country twang of Rivers Run, a laid-back piece, given a bittersweet edge courtesy of John Ginty’s Mellotron. The first track to be released from the album, the Stones-y Magnolia should already be familiar to fans of the band. A slide-fuelled gem that only seems to get better with each repeated listen, it deserves to be come the band’s anthem, and it has that indefinable quality that just feels classic. Following so glorious a song is no mean feat, but Should We Ever Part manages thanks to some wonderfully psychedelic guitar, which collapses into a full-blown, feedback-strewn wreck at the conclusion. What follows is nothing short of breath taking. A track that is steeped in rock ‘n’ roll lore, the lengthy The Doctor’s Daughter draws from the majestic Breathe and interpolates it with Hotel California over eight, sublime minutes of subtle guitar and ethereal keys. As such, the country shuffle of Much Obliged feels like a palette cleanser before the piano-led Congratulations brings the curtain down on an immensely satisfying album that seems set to assure its creators’ place in the great pantheon of rock ‘n’ roll bands.
Bless Your Heart is a fantastic album that sees the Allman Betts band flexing their creative muscles. Time and again, just as you think you have the measure of the record, they throw in a curve ball (such as Savannah’s Dream), effortlessly keeping the listener hooked. What is most clear, is just how much ambition the band were holding in reserve on their impressive debut, and Bless Your Heart emerges as the next step in this band’s rapid evolution. 9/10
