Play It Loud (CD - 2000)

Personnel: Chris Cagle (vocals); Robert Wright (acoustic guitar, bass, background vocals); Rex Schnelle, Michael Noble, Michael Spriggs (acoustic guitar); John Carroll (eletric guitar); Jonathan Yudkin (mandolin, viola); Gary Smith (piano, keyboards); Shannon Forrest, Steve Turner (drums).

Engineers: Craig White, Robert Wright, Sandy Williams.

Recorded at Curb and The Crime Scene Studios, Nashville, Tennessee.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

Like many young country music artists, Chris Cagle didn't grow up with country music so much as he did country-influenced pop and rock; his touchstones are the Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd, not Hank Williams and Merle Haggard. While his debut album Play It Loud unquestionably deserves to be filed under country, it's best to think of it just as much in the Southern rock category. Listening to it, music fans will be reminded most frequently of the Marshall Tucker Band and, especially, the Charlie Daniels Band. Cagle is most at home on up-tempo tracks like "Country by the Grace of God," "Rock the Boat," and the title track, also showing an affinity for swamp rock on "Love Between a Woman and a Man." Hence the leadoff track, "My Love Goes on and On," released months ahead of the album as Cagle's first single, is a good representation of his style, since it is another driving country-rocker. Necessarily, Cagle mixes in a few ballads, but they are not among the album's most impressive tracks. It may be that, with slower tempos and more emphasis on lyrics, such songs reveal Cagle's formulaic songwriting approach less flatteringly. The cliché-ridden, stereotypical declarations of romantic devotion would require a more distinctive balladeer to put it over successfully. The chief exception is the heart-rending "I Breathe In, I Breathe Out," actually Cagle's first song to be recorded (David Kersh cut it in 1997), which was added to the album for its Capitol Records reissue in June, 2001, along with another bonus track, "Are You Ever Gonna Love Me," and some multi-media content including the video for "Laredo," the album's second emphasis track and second chart hit. Cagle is an enthusiastic and engaging performer on his first album, but not yet a fully developed talent. ~ William Ruhlmann

Pop-country star Chris Cagle's debut album PLAY IT LOUD finds the young singer purveying a brand of country that manages to sound mainstream while maintaining a slightly left-of-center edge. While the occasional radio-ready production touch or pop-conscious hook does pop up, Cagle's overall approach is somewhere between the smart-guy semi-traditionalism of Brad Paisley and the hell-bent country-rocking sound of original outlaw Hank Williams, Jr. Chugging rhythm guitars and four-on-the-floor rhythms are just as important as steel guitar in the arrangements here, but the unmistakeable twang in Cagle's voice makes him more "country" than many of his peers in and of itself. Such tunes as "Rock the Boat" and the title track show Cagle's knack for hard-hitting, uptempo numbers, but the likes of "Who Needs the Whiskey" demonstrate Cagle's winning way with a ballad as well. minimize