PRODUCED by T Bone Burnett, this 10-track outing is as unadorned as its title suggests.
Mellencamp, once unfairly dismissed as a poor man’s Springsteen, here gathers a sort of gruff grandeur as he delivers these dusty, sometimes acerbic songs of the American way, starting with what sounds like a self-referencing hymn, Troubled Man. This fine, bestubbled opener sets the mood and the tone for what follows.
And what follows immediately is the stand-out Sometimes There’s God, another lament for dented times, blessed with a passing breeze of hope. The Isolation Of Mister is lifted by punctuating bursts of harmonica and organ, while the Courtesy Of Kings calls on the impetus of banjos. Mellencamp cranks things up for the closing, hard-driving Lawless Times, an unflinching, unloving look at his homeland. The change in pace is welcome, yet the true power lies in the directness of the other songs.
This is all a long way from the 1980s pomp of Jack & Diane and I Need A Lover, but at 63 Mellencamp has found a new voice.
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