Country Music as it Should Be

Chances are, you don't know Hayes Carll. And that's a shame, especially if you're a country music fan. In a year when Nashville has inflicted faux outlaws and faux rappers on country radio, Carll's twang is a welcome bit of ear wash.

By turns rollicking and lonesome, KMAG YOYO is Carll's best work to date. Those expecting super-smooth delivery will be left confused--this isn't aggressively auto-tuned country pop. This is a roots-country album in the best tradition of that subgenre. Carll sounds exactly the same on this album as he does in person--a drunken poet, as he has labeled himself in the recent past. By turns clever, funny, and heartbreaking, KMAG YOYO is a tour de force for Carll, showcasing his sense of humor and lyrical chops--he wrote or cowrote each of the twelve songs on the album.

Highlights include the title track, a fever-dream of sorts of a young soldier in Afghanistan. The subject matter is dark but the music is catchy--no one expects to find their toe tapping to an eighteen-year-old getting hit by an IED, but it will happen here. It's not a flag-waving song, but it is an honest one. "Stomp and Holler", which leads off the album, is another of the same sort of song, one where the music and the lyrics don't seem to mesh. Then again, when does real life ever make sense? Along with these two songs, the almost-love-song "Another Like You" show off Carll's humor. This song has about a joke per line, elevating the story of mismatched lovers into something far better than it by rights should be.

Hayes Carll is at his best when he sings slower songs, however. No one has done the sad country song this well since Lyle Lovett. Told from the viewpoint of a man who seems to have made nothing but wrong decisions his whole life, the wistful "Chances Are" is easily the highlight of the album. "The Letter", "Bye Bye Baby", and "Hide Me", the album ender, are other fantastic slow songs.

There's really not a bad song on the album, though longtime Carll fans will find "Hard Out Here" covers territory which is perhaps a slight bit too familiar. All-in-all, though, it's a great country album and will be appreciated by those who remember what the genre should sound like.