Album Reviews

Songs about women, whiskey, bars and broken hearts… preferably combined in one and the same night… this has to be a Drag The River album! Wait a minute, that can’t be because they broke up! Well, kinda at least. But “Bad At Breaking Up” (haha!) isn’t a new album, it’s a compilation of B-sides, 7” tracks and various rarities from this Fort Collins, CO country outfit.

And I do mean country, not alt-country like most of the punks gone country like to play. These guys don’t feel the need to inject their songs with yelling and beefed-up guitars. Hell, they don’t even need drums on most of the album. Jon Snodgrass and his friends just strum their guitars and tell the stories they feel like sharing. Even though the lyrical content won’t exactly make you happy (lyrics in country music don’t ever have that effect), the music sounds like it was recorded while hanging out on someone’s back porch with the occasional beer breaks and succeeds in making you think you’re there as well. In “Return” you can even hear the crickets chirping.

Seeing as it’s a compilation of songs that have been recorded throughout the entire band’s history, it lacks a sense of direction. And 20 songs is a little much. But to tell you the truth, that’s just nitpicking because this disc is almost as good as any of their regular albums.