Risin' Outlaw

It makes me laugh when I see people from the United States refer to any act that is strange to them in their culture performed by someone from a European country as a "European" act, and although I understand the intention, I find it hilarious how they try to somehow lump all these countries together into a meaningful cultural amalgam. As a person from a European country, I can say that the culture of many of the countries with which I share a continent is incredibly strange to me and sometimes I can't help but look at some of their habits with my eyes wide open and my mouth half open. Now imagine how strange I find American culture, that despite its huge and forced cultural expansion (hell, I know its geography and history better than my neighbouring country's) there are still things that I understand as purely and exclusively theirs and that are completely incomprehensible in my homeland. Well, country music is undoubtedly an example of all this, and I take it for granted that this is a type of music that is extremely linked to a specific geography. But truth be told, in the last few years it's a music that has generated some interest in me, so a quite logical step for a metalhead like me would be to make that approach through Hank Williams III, the main point of union between metal and country that I know.

That's why I'm not unfamiliar with part of the author's discography, and I have to admit that I have my ups and downs with him, and I also know first hand that his catalogue has always had that experimental tonality and that free will mentality. That's why this debut doesn't particularly appeal to me, even having read that this release has a reivendicative character moving away from the mainstream Nashville sound and recovering a Honkey Town sound, for me all that is nothing more than empty words as I can vaguely differentiate that for others it is so obvious due to my null knowledge of the genre. Thus leaving this album as the most traditional of Hank's discography, and giving me the impression that this style, in its idea of being pure to the core, is not for me. As for the production, you can certainly appreciate the professionalism of a major label specializing in this type of music, all the members involved are on point, as well as the mixing and the cleanliness of the sound, nothing too out of the ordinary for a production of this calibre. Hank III also sounds spot on, with a characteristic nasal voice and an accent that sounds strange to me in particular, but which I understand is his and is part of the charm of this genre of music.

There are albums that are mood inducing, that only need a little bit of their essence to transport you to their landscapes and their universe, Risin' Outlaw is rather mood necessary, listening to this album on a hot summer night feels very different than listening to it on a rainy morning on the atlantic coast. And there has to be something in that simplistic and repetitive style that just escapes me, I can recognise certain aspects, specifically I like the passages that have a more bitter and sad approach to themes like love, loneliness and rural life, but this is not something that is constant in Risin' Outlaw, there is variety when it comes to the nuances and tones that each song handles, but in all occasions the songs are reduced to the same parameters and end up boring me. That's why I appreciate the experimental ideas that Hank III handled later in his career, Ghost to a Ghost / Gutter Town is a double album of almost two and a half hours that I can devour without contemplation once a week, but here I simply see Hank III still in an embryonic phase of development, where a part of him is trying to fit the role that the industry has planned for him because of his resemblance to his famous grandfather while his side of eternal rebel tries to impose itself against what seems to be a destiny already written.

Even with all this, I do enjoy some of this album, at times it's hard to swallow, but I like several of its tracks and it hits the right spot when the time is right to listen to it, on some hot nights, just a pack of cigarettes and a couple of spins of Risin' Outlaw feels like the right way.