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Written
by Joshua Stryde, posted by blog admin
As
the album title indicates, Russ Still and the Moonshiners don’t regard
themselves as a finished product by any stretch of the imagination. Their
fourth studio release is a nine song collection featuring the six member’s
distinctive take on traditional Southern and country rock themes and sparkles
with added sharp songwriting distinguishing it from similarly slanted efforts.
It certainly has retro qualities, but those qualities never come at the expense
of the band’s personal vision for their music. Much of the material on Still
Cookin’ qualifies as much more than genre material – it often has a
singer/songwriter approach thanks to the personal line of inquiry Still’s
songwriting seems to take and it never rings hollow while still speaking with a
voice undeniably its own. Still Cookin’ finds Russ Still and the Moonshiners
firing on all cylinders.
“Promised
Land” is an ideal beginning track for this album. It introduces all the
strongest elements of Russ Still and the Moonshiner’s presentation in one
package and with high energy coming on from the outset. Still’s voice, in
particular, sounds perfectly suited to take advantage of this rousing
arrangement and he embodies all the wide-eyed optimism brimming over throughout
this performance. They certainly invoke strong strains of country music through
their writing and playing, but it has an irrepressibly gritty texture that
gives it the weight of truth. There’s a little bit of a different style
employed on the second track “Long Way from Home”. It’s a popular conceit for
songs in this tradition and Still takes his place in that tradition with
finesse and emotional authenticity. The primarily acoustic feel of the song strikes
a nice contrast with the first performance and the Moonshiners carry it off
with every bit as much aplomb.
Some
might find “I Can’t” a little too sentimental and even predictable, but the
former is a subjective reaction and the latter rates as one of the song’s
strongest qualities. Some truly great material has certain inevitability about
it and the song’s slowly evolving chorus pays off big for longtime followers of
the form. The band’s impressive balancing act between the blues, rock, and
country music idioms continues here with an appropriately high reaching ballad
that never takes a cheap route like so many other songs of its type. The
striding acoustic guitar opening “Gone Fishin’” makes the expected, but
satisfying, transition into a powerful riffer with a memorable chorus. Still
and the Moonshiners deliver the song without a hint of parody and the
celebratory air filling the track is genuine throughout. The finale “Run Away”
begins as a scintillating guitar rock before settling into a hard-charging
style picking up energy along the way exploding with a muscular chorus. Russ
Still and the Moonshiners might be supreme practitioners of an outmoded style
in some listener’s worlds, but they clearly never got the memo and invoke all
of their influences while still expanding on those roots with their own
signature style. Still Cookin’ is likely the band’s finest studio effort yet
and sports a number of natural fits for the band’s live set.
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