Hammer Down

The SteelDrivers definitely put the hammer down on their latest album, which captures the Nashville-based ensemble’s pitch-perfect blend of country, honky-tonk and bluegrass at peak acceleration. Highlights on the new album include ‘When You Don’t Come Home’, a tuned-up, high octane take on the cheating spouse theme, which is propelled by the superb harmony vocals of guitarist Gary Nichols and fiddler Tammy Rogers. The SteelDrivers’ masterful hybridising of elements from jam bands and traditional songster formats can be heard on ‘Burnin’ the Woodshed Down’, a shimmy-shaking blues, ‘Lonesome Goodbye’ and ‘Hell on Wheels,’ which recounts the exploits of a young, small-town girl set to the strains of a wailing fiddle and mandolin duet. ‘I’ll Be There’ is a romantic ballad with Scots-Irish Appalachian undertones, co-written by Gary with John Paul White of The Civil Wars, and showcases the band’s adeptness in a completely different realm. In recent concert appearances, the mega-selling soul singer Adele has been performing the SteelDriver’s song ‘If it Hadn’t Been for Love’. Her remark about the band tells it true: ‘They're a blues, country, bluegrass swagger band, and they are brilliant’.