Tracklist :

01- Quicksand

02- D-Day

03- My Truck

04- Hypocrite

05- Hard Times

06- What A Way To Die

07- Etched In My Soul

08- Gotta Get It Back

09- This Letter

10- Stop The Bleeding

11- Bounty Hunter

12- Mulberry Rock

Personnal :

Bass Guitar – Brian Watson

Drums – Blake Jones

Guitar – Dustin McElroy

Guitar, Harmony Vocals – Kevin Taylor

Guitar, Vocals – Doug Southern

Producer – Rick Willaford

From the first bars of the first track, the Georgia Shine Band sets the record straight: not really a clear line in its rock but the saturation fully assumed on the guitars, which brings them closer to the sound of Molly Hatchet than, randomly, from the Marshall Tucker Band, all dedicated to a typical and vigorous Southern rock, served by the rocky voice of the leader Doug Southern and a guitarist (at least!) who listened a lot to Allen Collins. I’m not going to complain! It must be said that two gang members (Kevin Taylor and Dustin McElroy) played with the former drummer of Lynyrd Skynyd, the late Bob Burns, Kevin Taylor also having worked with Molly Hatchet. This is great because, precisely, the only cover of this second album of the band is the “Bounty Hunter” of the DJB gang, Dave Hlubeck and Steve Holland (among others), here reproduced with passion, in a good spirit and with a certain talent. However the band has other facets and other skills: after two fiery rocks, even if the second also has the appearance of relentless boogie à la Molly Hatchet where the guitars pass the baton like in the great era, the third title is already breaking the mood with its acoustic guitars and its bottleneck glissandos to introduce a pretty, almost country-style acoustic ballad. Just an interlude before the Atlanta gang leaves flat out on the syncopated "Hypocrite". A beautiful intro with harmonized guitars leads to a "Hard Times" stretched like the slip of a virgin where the breaks are arranged to make Blake Jones shine. “What a way to die” will probably please a lot of Southern rock before 1983 aficionados when “Etched In My Soul” happily plays the card of the muscular ballad on a sentimental background, with always this search for harmony in the instrumental arrangement. These guys seem to have the knack for arranging ballads as melodious as energetic because "This Letter" gives another very convincing example. A beautiful, very fluid guitar punctuates a "Gotta Get It Back" whose accents Rory Gallagher would not have denied, and which nevertheless allows all the guitarists of the band to express themselves. For "Stop The Bleeding", an electric piano is intertwined with guitars that play it delicate for once, proof that it is within their league, while Doug Southern spreads his sentimental disappointments between aggressiveness and meditative distance. Curious but not uninteresting at all, even captivating. The guitarists then let go, first as we saw on the famous “Bounty Hunter”, and to close the album a welcome piano comes to support a very restless “Mulberry Rock” which shines brightly and would have done wonders on one of… Molly Hatchet's first albums! We don't get out. But it's good ... Certainly, no ultra-bass, no "thrash metal" or rap influences on this album, just to "look trendy" or to appear "young", and so much the better! On the other hand, a joyful return to the values of “our” Southern rock, with songs that hold water, between saturated Skynyrd and assumed Molly, a flawless interpretation and a production that knows how to be as discreet as it is efficient. A real joy !
Y. Philippot-Degand