A year after LL and “Beat This Summer,” he struggles to regain our affections.
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[5.67]
Megan Harrington: I chuckled lightly at Paisley’s play on words.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: I know this is rockist, and I’m sorry: in the Nashville kiddie pool of hypercompetent songwriting teams recruiting bland quasi-frat boys who can minimally sing, guys like Paisley, who write their own material cleverly and sing with star swagger, will always stand a bit taller. I could do without the guitar mugging under the verses (at least the bit underneath “shoot tequila” isn’t accidentally racist, but it’s silly, like jazz hands), but nevertheless: the instrumentation on “River Bank” has sharper edges, the first verse alone says more, even the summer-bait chorus and cheering crowds are more memorable than today’s other two dudes combined. It’s rote, but a higher standard of rote.
[7]
Josh Langhoff: From an artist whose central affect is “I see what he did there!”, it’s not surprising that “River Bank” is several orders of magnitude cleverer than its bro-ish radio cohort, in both lyric and production. But from an artist who can’t release an album containing fewer than 15 tracks, this is a track 11 at best. At least the cohort’s got hooks.
[4]
Alfred Soto: It begins with the filthiest of riffs, and if it weren’t for the drum program I could mistake this tune for Whenever We Wanted-era John Mellencamp. Turns out it’s another of Brad’s Songs About Stuff, with allusions to 2009’s perfect “Water.” “We can ride away,” he promises as the guitars go apeshit at the thought that he can wave goodbye to “Accidental Racist.” Whether he can say hello to a much-needed country hit we’ll soon see.
[7]
Anthony Easton: A few years behind the part, convinced of his own instrumental cleverness, and lacking either the grease or the grit that made songs like Cruise sound interesting, this seems like a strategic retreat after the clusterfuck of “Accidental Racist”, which is too bad because his story-songs about simple country pleasures are some of his best work.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: For the most part, this is just cheesy let’s-get-tanked summer babble, half devoted to outlandish five-beers-deep chat and sunburned wisdom about the real important things in life. It’s totally inoffensive, Brad Paisley playing it safe with a song aimed for July cookouts and singalongs featuring lots of dads. But geez, that “oh-ohhhh!” rising up in the middle of the chorus is rank, a perfectly sunny day turned into a Life Is Good branding session. The simple things in life can be great…so don’t muck them up with backing vocals that turn this into It’s A Small World After All.
[2]
Thomas Inskeep: Smacking of “I need a hit” desperation, this is so far beneath Paisley, who’s capable of being one of the best guys in country music. It’s got his feel, but none of his smarts. Clearly his label’s hoping for a summertime smash with this, and they may well get it, but this hurts. The production is downright bizarre, with overprocessed drums and a vocal line that actually sounds patched-together, and the lyrics aren’t even worthy of a b-list bro-country partisan. The worst single he’s released in probably a decade.
[2]
David Sheffieck: “You know even if our ship came in and this is all we got/ It ain’t like we really need a million dollar yacht,” Paisley sings at the end of the first verse; the second finds him imagining winning the lottery: “We’ll find a big cruise ship and buy the whole bang thing.” This is one of the most unexpectedly dead-on depictions of poverty I’ve heard from a millionaire pop star in a long time, the mix of defensive posturing about current circumstances and ridiculous dreaming about potential futures. And it’s something that grounds “River Bank,” lending weight to the song’s many hooks.
[10]
Brad Shoup: Paisley tends to prefer concision in his titles, but the dictates of country comedy would require a big ol’ phrase with parentheses, right? I don’t know if the thought came to him; the track is furnished haphazardly, with cheeseball “whoa-ohs” and his beloved party-time gang chorus only entering on the word “way”. The hook sticks, but it also sticks to the back of the mix. Some folks can pump out a new lake jam every summer; Brad had “Water” and it was perfect and he has no need for trying again.
[5]