Wailing out of Texas like a barnstorm banshee, Andrew Anderson’s latest album merges country and rock-a-billy with a modern aesthetic.
As Long as This Thing’s Flyin’ relies upon Anderson’s ability to use the full spectrum of his western style.
His meaningful and sometimes blunt lyrics sound like Cake, if that band used fast mandolin or banjo.
Music Review
Andrew Anderson
As Long as This Thing’s Flyin’
Dive verdict: 3.5 of 5 stars
But on the next song he could plunge into the depths of his own regret and conjure up something of a younger, perhaps softer, Johnny Cash.
The album ranges from up-tempo, silly songs like “Hell on Earth,” concerning his fateful love life, to the dramatic build of “Oh That Lonesome Sound,” in which Anderson paints himself as a drifter in the “deserts of Idaho.”
Skilled on mandolin, guitar and several other instruments, Anderson layers in many of his own tracks, although that doesn’t mean there’s an overload of lonesome crooning.
He’s not afraid to bring rock elements into the equation to back his furious picking. “Wait Darlin” is an example of how he can move from southern rocker to country western front man as if they were both from the same genre.
As Long as This Thing’s Flyin’ will do more to satisfy rock fans that enjoy a good banjo roll from time to time than it will old guard country/western purists, but it at least offers something for both sides.
Anderson’s voice is the key element, and as he ages it might develop into the sound of a contemporary classic like the influences he evokes, especially if he continues to “smoke too much and drink too much”, as he puts it — a time-honored recipe for success in a music career.
