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180g Red Vinyl Double LP With Custom Vinyl Wolf Etching!
Featuring Robert Randolph, Amanda Shires, Levi Lowrey & The Wood Brothers!
Pigeonholing Blackberry Smoke has never been easy. Since emerging from Atlanta in the early '00s, the quintetvocalist/lead guitarist Charlie Starr, guitarist/vocalist Paul Jackson, bassist/vocalist Richard Turner, drummer Brit Turner and keyboardist Brandon Stillhas become known for a singular sound indebted to classic rock, blues, country and folk.
Find A Light, Blackberry Smoke's sixth studio album, doubles down on diversity. Songs hew toward easygoing roots-rock ("Run Away From It All") and Southern rock stomps ("The Crooked Kind"), as well as stripped-down acoustic numbers ("I've Got This Song") and bruising alt-country ("Nobody Gives A Damn"). Rich instrumental flourisheskeening fiddle, solemn organ and bar-band piano boogieadd further depth and resonance.
"That's one of my favorite things about Blackberry Smoke albumsthere's a lot of variety," Starr says. "My favorite albums through the years are built that way, too. I love a record that keeps you guessing. I love the fact that our records are sort of a ride, with different types of songs and different vibes."
Within Blackberry Smoke's catalog, Find A Light is distinctive in several notable ways. The record sounds heavier than other albums; in fact, Starr characterizes the churning, scorched-blues album opener, "Flesh And Bone," as "maybe the heaviest song we've ever recorded." The title has deep significance to the record's overarching themes.
Accordingly, Find A Light's lyrics portray characters weighed down by the pressures of everyday life. "Flesh And Bone" explores the conundrum of temptation; "Run Away From It All" is about seizing the day and trying to leave troubles behind; and "Nobody Gives A Damn" cautions about letting external achievements such as an attractive partner or a hit song go to one's head.
Yet Find A Light's hard-luck characters are soldiering forward despite it all, and remain buoyed by optimismand deep faith in themselves. "One of these days I'll get the best seat in the house/It's the measure of a man, of a man," goes the jangly "Best Seat In The House," while the narrator of "I've Got A Song" asserts, "At the end of the day, it's the one thing they can't take away: I've got this song." The album's final song, "Mother Mountain," focuses on the belief that redemption and rebirth are always within reach.
"It felt good to write that song," Starr says of the latter. "I don't write a whole lot of songs like that, the really optimistic, yearning for something better kind of a song. The album's called Find A Light, and that song is sort of a plea, as far as that goes."
The brisk, gospel-tinged Southern rocker "I'll Keep Ramblin'" features the song's co-writer, Robert Randolph, adding frantic pedal steel, while the psychedelic-tinted folk elegy "Mother Mountain" blooms with The Wood Brothers' inimitable harmonies.
The Keith Nelson co-write, the easygoing "Let Me Down Easy," features Amanda Shires shading Starr's vocals with her clarion twang. "I thought it would be really cool to have a female harmony on this song, sort of a Gram Parsons-Emmylou Harris kind of thing," Starr explains. "And Amanda came to mind. Her voice is so cool, so genuine and unique."
Features:
180g Red Vinyl
Double LP
Custom vinyl wolf etching
Gatefold jacket
Limited time album download
Selections:
Side A:
1. Flesh And Bone
2. Run Away From It All
3. The Crooked Kind
4. Medicate My Mind
Side B:
1. I've Got This Song
2. Best Seat In The House
3. I'll Keep Ramblin' (feat. Robert Randolph)
4. Seems So Far
Side C:
1. Lord Strike Me Dead
2. Let Me Down Easy (feat. Amanda Shires)
3. Nobody Gives A Damn
4. Till The Wheels Fall Off
5. Mother Mountain (feat. The Wood Brothers)
Side D:
Custom Wolf Etching