Veteran Canadian country superstar Gord Bamford has begun to break the US with his latest release, ‘Country Junkie’. Featuring hits like ‘When Your Lips Are So Close’, ‘Unreal’ and ‘Where A Farm Used To Be’ (the former has since been certified Gold in Canada), he’s been picking up a buzz in non-Canadian press for the past year, following on from the October 2013 release date of the record. A month ago it was announced that Gord was nominated for no less than seven CCMA (Canadian Country Music Association) Awards for his recent work (the show airs this Sunday, September 7), so with that and the news that Gord raised over $500,000 for charity in his recent golf tournament, I thought it was time to delve into the album that made this all more possible than ever before.
His sixth full-length studio album to date, it shows him continuing to reflect upon his neo-traditional 90’s influences while pushing forward in the modern age. The collection consists of a variety of up-tempo country rockers, mid-tempo radio numbers and beautifully written ballads; as we range through the sharply pace-driven tale of ‘The Truth’, which quite literally celebrates the people who twist the truth to make a good story, the chilled, Spanish-influenced song of seduction ‘Groovin’ With You’, and the rich, lush arrangements of the epic love story ‘Nights Like You’, we get a colorful picture of the man and artist that Gord is. A man, it must be said, who manages to effortlessly segue between party songs (‘That’s How We Party’, One Makes Me Want Another’, ‘Saturday’s Beer’), and heartfelt lyrics from his point of view as a husband and father, such as the foot-tapping ‘Daughterville’, which amusingly takes a look at fatherhood in the real world (including all the money he seems to spend!). ‘I Won’t Regret That’, too, ponders on the responsibility and life-affirming event of becoming a father, and how with all the things in the world he might one day come to regret, fatherhood will never be one of them.
Even the party songs, however, borne into a market that is completely over-saturated with boozy celebration, manage to retain their dignity, simply by keeping to a real country sound. While many of Gord’s mainstream US counterparts are busy mixing other genres such as pop, R&B, rock and hip hop into their music, he keeps things simple and back to basics with a merge of 90s country influences and a more modern, middle of the road sound that make them a lot more fun and pleasant to listen to. In fact, despite their faithfulness to regularly trodden paths, situated among the likes of Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryans Gord’s party sounds come across somewhat fresh sonically, and even for someone like me who dislikes most party anthems, they’re fun to dance and sing along to. Throughout he has his own unique voice that still doesn’t stray too far from a familiar country sound, and despite my reservations about tracks like ‘Country Junkie’, heapings of pedal steel, banjo and a swift avoidance of ignorant clichés (it seems self-aware and universal in its articulation) mean that I can easily enjoy them.
Then there are the love songs. It’s here where Gord drifts to an older, smoother, more classic sound, and he truly excels at the crooning style that seems to define him even through all the other stuff. He shows that he is capable of the various styles and subject matters that exist on ‘Country Junkie’, but we feel something of a return to home with ‘Unreal’, ‘When Your Lips Are So Close’, and ‘She Gets Me’. Gord Bamford is a class act with true country roots, one that perhaps isn’t set to explode in the US just yet due to bro-country, but his time will come. He’s an artist you can return to time and again and always makes you smile. There’s just something effortless about this ‘Country Junkie’.
