Here and Now (CD - 2006)

Personnel: Bryan Sutton (acoustic guitar, slide guitar, National guitar, banjo); Brent Rowan (electric guitar, 6-string guitar, baritone guitar, bass guitar, 6-string bass); Jim "Moose" Brown (piano, Wurlitzer piano, Hammond b-3 organ, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards); Kevin Grantt (bass guitar); Greg Morrow (drums, drum); Questionnaires (background vocals); B. James Lowry (acoustic guitar, resonator guitar); Pat Buchanan (electric guitar, slide guitar); J.T. Corenflos, Brent Mason (electric guitar); Tim Lauer (accordion); Eric Darken (percussion); Chris Stapleton, Wes Hightower (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: Justin Niebank.

Recording information: Blackbird Studios, Nashville, TN; Masterfonics, Nashville, TN; The Castle, Nashville, TN; The Ice Box, Brentwood, TN.

Photographer: Jeremy Cowart.

Released in late 2006, HERE AND NOW finds country singer Darryl Worley on a new label (903 Music) and sporting a scruffier, long-haired look. With its more rocking, upbeat sound, the album leans a little bit towards Keith Urban, as well as Toby Keith, yet it still shows off Worley's own twangy, Tennessee-bred charm, most notably on the rollicking, defiant "Jumpin' Off the Wagon" and the lively, self-explanatory "Party Song."

"I got drunk in Raleigh and I played too long/Word got back to Nashville before I got back home/The record label said, 'Boy, you better straighten up your act'/The lawyers told me, 'Son, that's what the contracts say'/So I got good and sober and I stayed that way/Still you couldn't find a Worley record on the rack/I did everything they asked me to do/And still they went and cut me loose" -- that's how Darryl Worley begins Here and Now, his fourth album and the follow-up to his huge debut, Have You Forgotten?, whose post-9/11 anthem made Worley a brief sensation in the early days of the Iraqi War. "Do You Remember" made Worley omnipresent for a while there -- the song was on the radio, scorned by liberals, and embraced by Republicans -- which would seem to be enough to guarantee Worley another shot at a major label, but if the story he lays out on "Jumpin' off the Wagon" is even a quarter true, he wasn't ready to play by the rules -- which isn't necessarily the same thing as being a bona fide outlaw. Worley pretty much plays by the rebel handbook, swaggering to a blueprint as he rocks his country just enough to not be pop but not enough to truly surprise. Frankly, he's just a bit too well groomed -- not just in image but in sound -- to have this outsized outlaw persona fit, as his voice isn't muscled enough, all the guitars are bit too well scrubbed, and the rhythms are just a bit too clean and tight. That said, Here and Now is a significant step forward for Worley, because even he doesn't feel as gritty as he'd like to be -- it's not quite the "country music with a nasty groove" that he sings about on "Party Song" (which is itself a dead ringer for the Faces' immortal end-of-the-party anthem "Had Me a Real Good Time" -- he's not only more fun in this incarnation, but his songs are generally stronger too, particularly that statement of purpose "Jumpin' off the Wagon," which provides him with a mission statement that he valiantly tries to fulfill here. If he doesn't quite do it, at least he's headed in the right direction. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize