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3 From Hank3: Ghost to A Ghost/Gutter Town- Attention Deficit Domination- Cattle Callin'

by Kevin Wierzbicki

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Hank Williams III, son of Hank "Bocephus" Williams Jr. and grandson of the legendary Hank Williams has released more material in one day than many artists release in a decade or for that matter, a career. Hank3 has recently changed labels, he's now with Megaforce, and he's given his new imprint plenty to work with, including something that's truly never been heard before.

Ghost to A Ghost/Gutter Town
The Ghost to A Ghost half of this 2-CD set begins, oddly enough, with "Gutter Town," a fiddle-and-banjo stomper that's arranged as a traditional old-style country number (grandpa would be proud) but delivered with an outlaw bent. Williams has the perfect voice for this kind of music; he often sounds like a hayseed but like a hayseed that you wouldn't dare mess with and there's something very appealing about the way he wields his voice on the Waylon-esque "Day by Day." "Ridin' the Wave" finds Hank3 getting raucous, going a little metal by adding thundering drums to what is otherwise essentially a frantic bluegrass tune. "Ray Lawrence, Jr." sounds like something from the Steve Earle songbook; "Trooper's Hollar" is a bluegrass number about running a dog that includes faux barking and "Ghost to A Ghost" finds Williams straddling the Tex/Mex border. The Gutter Town portion of the album is kind of bizarre; one minute Williams is rockin' Cajun style with "Gutter Stomp" but the next minute he's filling space with a spoken word and effects slice of hillbilly hell called "Musha's." That's the modus operandi for all of Gutter Town; a "serious" musical number and then something weird, and so on. The material is actually very intriguing but no doubt some will find the tactic off-putting.

Attention Deficit Domination
This one is Hank3 in doom metal mode with lots of droning guitar and lumbering bass lines but this is not the doomiest of doom; songs like "Camouflage" and "I Feel Sacrificed" owe far more to Black Sabbath than they do to acts like Sunn O))). "Demon's Mark" is classic hard rock with an evil overtone and "Aman" is woozy heavy metal where Hank's vocals quaver with effects; the same effect makes him sound downright scary on closing number "Goats 'n' Heathens."

Cattle Callin'
You've got to hear this to believe it and maybe even then you won't believe it. You know how fast auctioneers reel off their spiels, right? Here Hank3 has taken various snippets of the lightning-fast action from actual cattle auctions and set them to speed metal riffing. The album doesn't have a subtitle but if it did it would probably be Advil Moment.

3 From Hank3: Ghost to A Ghost/Gutter Town- Attention Deficit Domination- Cattle Callin'

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