Album Review: Adam Brand & The Outlaws – Adam Brand & The Outlaws
2 min read
Adam Brand & The Outlaws is an Australian Country all-star collective fronted by the acclaimed Adam Brand. It’s a band venture also featuring the talents of Drew McAlister, Travis Collins, Matt Cornell and Mike Carr. The 5 piece came together to have a good time, releasing Adam Brand & The Outlaws, a 14 track, party playlist exploding with covers from some of the best, and it’s enough to get any outlaw in a groove.
Opening up with a bang is the big boned “hillbilly rock ‘n’ roll” tune Good Year For The Outlaw. Taking down the twang a notch, and upping the rock edge, it’s a fresh take on the Jeffery Steele original, setting the mood for these outlaws. And while no country album can be complete without the drinking anthems, Nothin’ But A Good Time and It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere are your classic mid-tempo pub chants reciting tales from the bottle.
Taking their twang and mixing it with some classic rock tracks is where Adam Brand & The Outlaws finds new light. The outlaws take their distinct country sound and big riffs to add new fire to The Clash’s I Fought The Law, Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl and even Green Day’s smoother, Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life). And to truly bring home on the Aussie front, the band excel on revamping Gang Gajang’s Sounds Of Then, adding in a gutsy country twang and their deep vocals to really round out the track. And of course covering Cold Chisel’s epic Working Class Man and retelling it with such passion and power really solidifies these outlaws as ones that shouldn’t be messed with.
Adam Brand & The Outlaws is big album, tackling some of the biggest names in the rock/country industry, all crafted with their distinct voice. As an album its got belter after belter, but in its consistency it lacks a touch of originality. While it would have really rounded out the tunes to have some fresh material amongst these classics, as a party playlist you wont be left disappointed. The Outlaws came, they sang and overall they rocked.
