It’s got some light and some space and some things that are unique. “I’ve been living with this one a lot longer than I normally would, and it still sounds good to me. “Whenever somebody else hears a record, the artist is well fucking tired of it,” Cantrell says. If his own listening tastes are any kind of gauge, the guitarist thinks Brighten will have some legs once it’s released.
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And the gutbucket swagger of Dismembered echoes the freewheeling, down-home vibe of early '70s Stones.
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Thanks to the pedal steel licks of Michael Rozon, a breezy Americana charm blows through country rockers Prism of Doubt and Black Hearts and Evil Done. There are few shades of darkness and solemnity Siren Song is a heavy-duty mood piece, and the album closes with a chilling cover of Elton John’s Goodbye that pairs doom-drenched guitars with swelling orchestral strings.īut for the most part, Cantrell imbues his songs with a feeling that’s startlingly sunny. It’s my job.”Ĭantrell kicks Brighten off with Atone, a dusty and bluesy roar that seems to encapsulate everything about his signature sound – the gnashing stacked guitars, sweet-and-sour vocal harmonies and a king-sized riff that sticks to your ribs – in one neat package. I’ve been a lucky fellow to be able to make something that I care about and use my creativity as an artist, and also as a way to support myself. Perhaps owing to the prevailing notion that he’s a grim and gloomy dude, he lets out a warm laugh and says, “I feel like I’ve been in a pretty good place most of my life.
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Depending on how you keep score, Brighten is either Cantrell’s third or fourth solo album (in 1998 he issued Boggy Depot, and 2002 saw the release of Degradation Trips, Volumes 1 and 2), and as the record’s optimistic and walloping title track suggests, the guitarist is in a pretty good place these days.