The best approach to Hank III’s new double disc album Straight To Hell (released Feb. 28 ‘06 on BRUC Records) is to sit down just before dark with a bottle of whiskey and a joint the size of Grandma’s turkey baster; within seconds you will realize that the HELL raised tonight comes from a whole new dimension. Cause Hank’s music is a lifestyle, it’s a hell raisin’, honky-tonkin’, pot smoking’, girly lovin’, train hoppin’, belt buckle wearin’, tattoed manifesto of a lil’ something called country. Hank and the Damn Band represent an American anti-culture that originated before Johny Appleseed even planted a tree and long before Garth Brooks showed up, as Hank’s family history attests. With his new album comes the next heel stompin’ jambory, and damn it’s been a while.Straight To Hell’s sound, at first, is that of traditional country album. Steel guitar twang, boppin’ bass, fiddle-sqeal, and banjo strummin’ announce the first song. It sounds like an ancient record found at some garage sale that you happened to take home and haven’t stop listening to since. A rare find, a glimpse at old time reality--to help induce this skunky nostalgia Hank and the Damn Band did all the recording themselves in a “good wooden room” in Nashville, on a Korg D1600, as the album jacket boasts; a simple recording device with built-in CD burner. The ambiance is as low down and dirty as the lyric’s subject matter. But don’t be fooled, as steeped in tradition as this album appears, its full of surprises, like the sample of low rolling Satan-laughter 34 seconds into track 1.
The story-telling lyrics tell about living hard, the drinkin’ and druggin’ and how it’s all going down hill. But the morel is always the same: we’ll get by somehow, and there ain’t no other kind of livin’! Hank has a rare talent for putting the listener in the condition he describes. So maybe you haven’t woken up surrounded by empty bottles, broken glass, the sound of someone crying, and bullets in the walls, but gad-damn if he doesn’t put you there. And if you have been there, he’ll comisserate with you about it. Hank’s other favorite subject is heartbreak, a subject everyone can relate with, though this album is not as saturated with love songs as his last release, Lovesick, Broke & Driftin’. The lonesome cowboy isn’t gone completely, Hank’s yodel still rings true on many songs, imbibing them with sorrow, but the hard partying cowboy wrote most of this album.
Besides the 13 tracks on Disc 1, Hank III gives a 42 minute long track on Disc 2. It is a solo perfomance full of psycodelic samples, tweaked production, and good ol’ country songs. Disc 2 reveals Hank’s desire and ability to take country in truly original directions. Songs proudly mock polite society as well as “pop country” by combining country crooning with punk and metal screams lowly mixed into the background. The overall effect is a violence that many will find distasteful, exemplified in Not Everyone Likes Us: “I think I’d rather eat the barrel/ of a double farrel loaded shotgun/ than hear that shit/ they call pop country music/ on 98.1”. But the bottom line - straight up - distorted screams have never been mixed with traditional country before this album. And only Hank III could make it work. Straight To Hell is written for anyone who loves good ol’ country music and likes raisin‘ a little hell. Don’t expect Straight to Hell to let you go to bed early, but if you play it at Grandma’s she probably won’t listen carefully enough to catch all the Satan stuff.
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