Come back, bro-country, all is forgiven…
[Video][Website]
[3.57]
Alfred Soto: Heartbreakers organ, Alabama harmonies, tough riffs from everyplace — this is country music, all right, seasoned with several years of AOR radio listening, and it’s a blend more savory than what Kip Moore and Jason Aldean offer despite the milder taste.
[6]
Iain Mew: There’s something very ill-fitting between the cosy AOR sound (those honeyed harmonies!) and the way that the song reels without direction from resignation to promising God’s vengeance. It’s like he’s had a drunken argument, got even more happily drunk, and we’re listening to him retelling how it all went. As an experience it might be preferable to actually being there, but it’s frustratingly lengthy and incoherent.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Who knew that having Dave Grohl behind the boards would pull even more Marshall Tucker-ness out of ZBB? Soupy guitar solo, regressive lyrics (what’s with that Sodom & Gomorrah reference?), and a weird waltz-tempo bridge: no, it’s not all alright, actually.
[3]
Brad Shoup: I can’t get past that Sodom and Gomorrah line — the lyric video shrinks the phrase down, but God bless those poor editors, it’s still there. Like, if the track summoned genuine impotent rage, I could accommodate a reference to Biblical vengeance. But every inch of this is dripped-over with sweat, from the desperate harmonies to the whoopie cushion of a talkbox solo to Brown’s nice-guy delivery. They know exactly what evil they’re summoning. Brown reaches for the Percy Sledgehammer after the solo; it goes over about as gross as you’d guess.
[4]
Anthony Easton: This song hates women, loves guitars, and doesn’t even have the kindness of being interesting about either. If we are going to put metal into country, can we make it more of the shake and the grind, and less of the soggy biscuit power ballads?
[1]
Edward Okulicz: Reliable, sturdy country riffin’ and blastin, wedded to the rants of an unreliable (and possibly unstable) narrator. Lots of great sounds — harmonies! — but for a pastiche with passion I’m unconvinced. Even the irony of calling a pass-ag angry bluesy riff-angry-a-thon “All Alright” doesn’t add much to it. Feels like half a promising song from a jam session given all the bells and whistles, but there’s only so much chrome you can put on half a chassis, if you know what I mean.
[4]
Patrick St. Michel: Need a lawn chair for this.
[3]