Often, before I listen to an album, I have a preconceived idea of how I’m going to feel about it. Good or bad, I can usually tell from an artist’s track record or what other people have been saying about them what kind of music I can expect, the quality and the creativity of it. I first discovered Brantley Gilbert when ‘My Kind of Crazy’ was first released. The year of 2010, he was an unknown name at the time, and still signed to Average Joes before Valory poached him. I loved the song and also the album, he and Jason Aldean shining in how they differed from much of the music at the time. But times have changed, I have got older, and my opinion about much music has changed, particularly when it comes to Jason Aldean and the kind of sounds and song topics he spurts into the world. With Brantley, I thought I had him pegged. ‘Bottoms Up’ and ‘Small Town Throwdown’ (review here) were evidence enough to me that he had gone bro, and an ugly over-distorted rock bro at that. I knew that he remained a good songwriter, but that perhaps label politics and attempts to brand him in a certain way were preventing him from releasing anything of real interest. Either way, I was done being on Brantley Gilbert’s side.
So when I came to listen to ‘Just As I Am’, an album that sold an astonishing 215,000 copies in its first week, I already felt like I knew what I was going to say. Too bro, too boring, too generic, too over-the-top in its ultra-macho 80’s rock/metal squashing any country that might yet have survived. Occasionally I was right, as the two singles, plus ‘If You Want A Bad Boy’ and ‘G.R.I.T.S’ (a re-recording of a cut from his first album ‘Modern Day Prodigal Son’) display. Self-indulgent declarations of manliness and sexual prowess are not my bag, and even the aggressive defense of a woman being abused in ‘Read Me My Rights’ is one I’m not sure how I feel about, as it proudly celebrates being arrested for defending that woman’s honor by beating the other guy up. On one level, I have no time for songs about fighting, jail time or abhorrent displays of masculinity under the guise of chivalry. On the other, at least there was a purpose for said fight, and that involved doing something which he deemed honorable. Not that women need men to come to their rescue all the time, but I guess that’s situation-dependent.
However, ‘Just As I Am’ also allows plenty of opportunity for Brantley to show his softer, more emotional side. ‘I’m Gone’ feeds into a more country sounding vein with a mandolin intro, detailing the slow failing of a relationship, summed up by the hook line, “I’m not going… I’m gone”, insisting that the other party is still desperately holding on. Although it comes across slightly accusatory at times, there’s a depth to it that many will attribute to his broken engagement with Jana Kramer, and overall it’s a decent album cut. Brantley also delves into discussion of his faith on ‘One Hell of An Amen’ and ‘My Faith In You’; the former is a wonderfully heartfelt tribute to the troops and those suffering with cancer with a positive spin that declares their reuniting in Heaven, while the latter reads as a prayer to Jesus asking for help, because his world’s caving again (special note goes to the cringeworthy spoken word in the instrumental). Just as ‘I’m Gone’ could be seen as about Jana, ‘My Faith In You’ could be interpreted as a plea at the height of his alcoholism, although perhaps this is reading too far into it. Either way, it represents a more thoughtful aspect of Brantley’s songwriting that should be tapped into more beyond the stadium rockers of ‘My Baby’s Guns N’ Roses’.
That aside, there is far less of that aggression than I was expecting. ’17 Again’, ‘Lights of My Hometown’ and ‘That Was Us’ celebrate the typical small town paradise that is eagerly painted across the walls of country radio at every available opportunity, often with the themes of falling in love filling in the lines. Illustrated by roughed-up pop/rock structures with harder rock and metal flourishes here and there, they read as commercial suck-ups while trying to retain Brantley’s branding as a rebel and outlaw. This can begin to get tiresome, the same old mix and solos leaning on the side of banal and genericism. The trouble is, where rock in mainstream country can be fabulous a la Eric Church and Miranda Lambert, the full production stadium blast softened with the faux-rock adult contemporary can get on the dull side (such as ‘Let It Ride’, although the lyrics should be appreciated separately), and is decidedly off-putting. I don’t want Brantley to be creating that fuzzy barely-distinguishable stuff, but equally the more commercial material makes me wish he’d rock out a bit and not follow a tried-and-tested-and-chucked formula. There’s a distinct chance that that could be my own aesthetic biases though.
It’s the closer, ‘Grown Ass Man’, that sets itself apart completely. Acoustic in nature, with dobro and a fairly rough and raw vocal from Brantley, its purpose is a defiance against the machine of Nashville and the music industry, combined with claims of authenticity that don’t come across as forced, but rather humble and genuine. There’s a vulnerability and truthfulness to the seemingly autobiographical track that really sells it, and what’s more, a true country sound, showing us what he’s really capable of in this format. Of course, he could carry on with his Gun N’ Roses machismo and redneck sensibilities and make a ton of dollah, but the fact that this could have been the mantra of ‘Just As I Am’ yet he continues to fight his corner, means I’m still in his.
