Album review: Steve Earle, 'I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive'
2 stars (out of 4)
Steve Earle’s latest album, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” (New West), shares a title with a historical novel he was writing (to be published in May) and the last single Hank Williams wrote in his brief lifetime. Most of these 11 songs share Williams’ sense of mortality and try to glimpse at the world beyond the one we see. The performances are mostly stripped-down country-folk tunes, outfitted with sighing pedal steel and fiddle under the direction of producer T Bone Burnett. At times it feels like a period exercise, Earle and his accomplices evoking a hoedown in need only of a few hay bales (“Little Emperor”), ancient troubadours jamming around the Maypole (“Molly-O”), and over-served saloon denizens leading a jaunty sing-along (“Gulf of Mexico”). A few specific references to modern events are sprinkled throughout, but mostly Earle sings in unusually hazy generalities or clichés (“Every Part of Me,” “Lonely are the Free”). The tepid music doesn’t help, with only the distorted vocal and blues harmonica on “Meet Me in the Alleyway” disrupting the rocking-chair flow. Maybe working on a novel distracted Earle, but the feisty dust-kicker of old appears to have taken this one off.
greg@gregkot.com