Where so many alt-country buckaroos convey a holier-than-thou disdain for the country mainstream, the Derailers have always worn their commercial aspirations on their sleeve. Without forsaking the formative twang of Buck Owens on their second album for Lucky Dog, the band and veteran producer Kyle Lehning have fashioned a sound that flirts with the honky-tonk lite of Brooks & Dunn.
With catchy cuts such as “Leave A Message, Juanita”, “Uncool” and the title track aspiring to find a common denominator between the contemporary airwaves and the roadhouse dance floor of the Broken Spoke, a something-for-everyone eclecticism marks the album as a whole. The dreamy balladry of “Alone With You” and “Whole Other World” seems to channel the Mavericks’ Orbisonesque tendencies, “The Way To My Heart” offers an uncanny impersonation of its writer Jim Lauderdale, and “Scratch My Back” could have come from the Nuggets compilation of ’60s garage-band rock. The album-ending segue from the Owens instrumental romp of “Happy Go Lucky Guitar” into the goofball novelty of “I Love Me Some Elvis” into the Louvinesque mountain spiritual of “The Wheel” is enough to give the listener whiplash.
The Derailers deserve credit for extending beyond retro Bakersfield revivalism, yet ten years after vocalist-guitarist-songwriters Tony Villanueva and Brian Hofeldt moved from their native Oregon to Austin to start the band, they’re still trying to establish a musical identity that is more than the sum of their influences. Little of this collection is less than engaging, but too little is more than derivative.
