Going country can be tricky business for a mainstream star, the kind of move typically pegged as musical carpetbagging at besta game for silly tourists who try on twang like its a ten-gallon hat at the Nashville airport gift shopor at worst pure opportunism.
So its a neat surprise that Steven Tylers swerve into the genre comes off as organic as it does, less like a borrowed costume than a slide into something comfortably worn.
It helps that he doesnt OD on the banjo-and-moonshine signifiers, and that his unmistakable voice, all sandpaper and weather, already sounds made for songs like these.
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There are achy, bittersweet ballads (My Own Worst Enemy, It Aint Easy), roadhouse rambles (The Good, the Bad, the Ugly & Me, Sweet Louisiana), and one blues-rock stomper, Hold On (Wont Let Go), whose spirit animal is clearly the Black Keys.
Covers of Piece of My Heart and Aerosmiths own Janies Got a Gun feel more fond than fundamental, but as a sonic experimentSomebodysuits this Boston boy: Hes not trespassing, just taking a Southern detour.B+
