Personnel: Bryan Sutton (guitar, acoustic guitar, National guitar, banjo); Pat Bergeson, B. James Lowry (acoustic guitar); Pat Buchanan (electric guitar, baritone guitar, harp); Kenny Greenberg, J.T. Corenflos (electric guitar, baritone guitar); Frank Rogers (electric guitar, banjo); Aubrey Haynie (electric guitar, mandolin, fiddle); Dann Huff (electric guitar); Michael "Mike Dee" Johnson, Michael Johnson (steel guitar, dobro); Paul Franklin (steel guitar); Ilya Toshinsky (banjo); John Catchings (cello); Love Sponge String Quartet (strings); Jim "Moose" Brown (piano, Clavinet, Hammond b-3 organ, keyboards); Gordon Mote (piano, Hammond b-3 organ); Mike Brignardello (bass instrument); Greg Morrow, Shannon Forrest (drums); Eric Darken (percussion); Sonya Isaacs, Wes Hightower, Ben Isaacs (background vocals).
Audio Mixer: Justin Niebank.
Recording information: Blackbird Studios, Nashville, TN; The Castle, Franklin, TN; The Ice Box, Brentwood, TN; The Sound Kitchen, Franklin, TN; United States Military Academy, West Point NY.
Photographer: James Minchin.
Arrangers: David Huntsinger; John Hobbs.
Nashville star Trace Adkins returns with his 10th album in a dozen years, a no-nonsense collection of traditional-style country tunes with subtle rock and R&B influences. The gospel-tinged first single, "Muddy Water," and the old-fashioned country tearjerker "Sometimes A Man Takes A Drink" are particular highlights, as are the funky, R&B-flavored "Better Than I Thought I'd Be" and the sly "Marry For Money" and "Hillbilly Rich." Adkins adds to the patriotic tradition of country music with the heartfelt "Till The Last Shot's Fired," which also features the West Point Cadet Choir. Well into his second decade as a hitmaker, X shows Trace Adkins maintaining his signature sound without falling into the danger of retreads or self-imitation.
If you didn't know better, the blasting guitar riff on "Sweet," the opening track on Trace Adkins'X (Ten), might be mistaken for one off a .38 Special track from the late '70s. The track has the single potential of one of Adkins' many hits. The song has an infectious hook in its refrain -- and yes, it rocks. But by the time the set's second number, "Happy to Be Here," commences with a similar big guitar entrance -- albeit on a midtempo ballad -- "Sweet" isn't even a memory. And the same happens for the latter cut when "All I Ask for Anymore" arrives with strings, an acoustic guitar, and a pedal steel whispering in that big gritty baritone of Adkins. It's a ballad drenched in personal truth, and gratitude that is profound. Adkins is actually trying to get across something of a "message" here, albeit one that is humble in scope. The funky B-3 and snare WHOMP that introduces "Let's Do That Again" is a nice curve ball, even if the cut sounds like an outtake from a Josh Turner record. The wide-open slide and pedal steel guitars ride the shuffling rhythm; the singer's delivery has that balance of swagger and warmth that makes it soulful. The acoustic country blues (à la John Hurt style) on "Marry for Money" is deceptive in that it is merely the intro to a modern honky tonk tune that is the lyrical Nash Vegas equivalent of bling rap -- and is every bit as sexist.
The album's best track is easily "Til the Last Shot's Fired," written by Rob Crosby and Doug Johnson. It's an antiwar song from the point of view of the ghosts of soldiers who served in the Confederacy, on Omaha Beach during WWII, in Vietnam, and in Afghanistan. Its Dobro, acoustic guitars, brushed snare, and gorgeous choral arrangement at the end of the track make it stand out from the pack, not just on this set, but from contemporary country in general. It's followed by the stellar "I Can't Outrun You," a broken love song about a different kind of ghost. And like its immediate predecessor, it sounds like Adkins means it. The façade of the good-time shaggy-dog honky tonk boy is ripped away, and what remains is a man with some regrets, some baggage, and some hard-won, hard-lived truth, helping him move through the world. With every '70s rock and funky-lite cliché in the book tossed in the mix, it's debatable. If you need further proof of the dilemma, check the straight-ahead melody, whining steel, and shimmering drums on the honky tonk ballad "Sometimes a Man Takes a Drink," a paean to alcoholism. It's a country song that isn't a bevy of ridiculous lyrics celebrating the "good" life, but a story that points to something more poignant, larger, and embedded in the bone of the singer. It isn't even the singer's fault that half of this -- no doubt the more commercially successful half -- will continue to perpetuate Nash Vegas' identity crisis that walks between '70s radio rock and its own tradition. If one wants to really hear the gifts that Adkins is endowed with as a vocalist, one that can reach people in the marrow of where they live, toss away the hits and listen to the rest. ~ Thom Jurek minimize