Black Stone Cherry - Again

         I think it's fair to say that the last album from Black Stone Cherry left me a little underwhelmed.  Always an entertaining live act, the studio output on 2018's Family Tree and 2016's Kentucky had not been up to the consistent standard that their prior albums had achieved.  Some stand out songs, but not across a whole album.

Again, the latest single from the four piece seems to be redressing the balance somewhat.  It's a serious statement of intent, heavy and plaintive, coming in on a simple drum beat and riff, which quickly bursts into the sort of rolling rhythm that the best BSC songs excel in.   

Lyrically it's the sort of song that Chris Robertson likes to come back to, the pain of life, and finding the strength to rise above it.  Where this track really comes to life though, is the chorus.  The song feels like it's building up to a big singalong chorus, but it doesn't, it just stops and the first time the chorus is played is a quiet affair, with acoustic stumming and Chis singing a stripped back rendition.  It's all the more effective when at the second time of asking, the song takes flight.  This is a song for arenas, and the band sounds comfortable here.  

I suspect this is a back to basics song for BSC, after the blues dalliances of the last couple albums.  The blues influences are still here,as they always have been, but Again is more dynamic, more hooky, more powerful for having dialed back on that and bought the stomping rawk they became famous for back to the forefront. Certainly Again wouldn't sound out of place on Magic Mountain or Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and I can only hope that the forthcoming album, The Human Condition, continues this strong start.