Reckless Kelly, Bulletproof
Some of the most handsome guitar-jangling, post-Petty heartbreak-and-wanderlust pop in all of Texas.
As Texas road-dawg renegades recording for a label known for its alt-roots purism go, Reckless Kelly don't generally sound all that far from a lot of good stuff that comes out of Nashville these days: On Bulletproof, tracks like “Ragged as the Road,” “One False Move” and “Wandering Eye” are precisely the sort of handsomely guitar-jangling, post-Petty heartbreak-and-wanderlust pop that's made stars out of Keith Urban, Jack Ingram and Dierks Bentley in recent years. Which is a compliment, by the way.
And those aren't even as catchy as the album gets. “A Guy Like Me” builds a garage-rock riff into something out of Rockpile's old pub, and “How Was California” wears its Eagles tunefulness on its sleeve, even when its geography turns toward Texas and New York and its chorus melody toward George Strait's “Amarillo By Morning.” The album's power-pop pinnacle, though, comes in “Love in Her Eyes,” when guitars set on “Authority Song” suddenly switch to “Please Please Me” halfway through.
Lyrically, these songs admittedly fall short on specifics. And when tempos slow toward album's end — conjuring Woody Guthrie in “Mirage” and Drive-By Truckers in the sax-climaxing Katrina dirge “God Forsaken Town” — the plodding isn't always a plus. But the album's uncharacteristic centerpiece makes up for all that: A tale of a teen sent off to war who winds up losing his legs before he can legally drink, “American Blood” could be “Born in the U.S.A.” for the age of Iraq. “God bless America, but God damn Uncle Sam,” the climax goes: Maybe this is what sets Reckless Kelly apart from Nashville.
