Imagine if some mad scientist working for the Nashville office of a major record label created a cross between
Marty Stuart
and
Mark McGrath
, and you start to get an idea of what to expect from
Shannon Lawson
.
Lawson
shares
Stuart
's fondness for both
traditional country
flavors and up-tempo
rock & roll
, and like
McGrath
he's a high-attitude bad-boy type with the kind of photogenically unruly hair that's all the rage with marketing departments. Trouble is, judging from
's debut album,
Chase the Sun
,
falls short of
's chops and good taste; while his guitar and mandolin work are pretty good, his
rock
influences are strictly by-the-numbers, especially on the high-bombast
"Who's Your Daddy"
(which the overly polished production from
Mark Wright
only emphasizes), and his
honky tonk
bluegrass
gestures are neither strong nor original enough to make more than a surface impact (and no matter what
thinks, his acoustic version of
Marvin Gaye
's
"Let's Get It On"
is a fun idea, but it sure ain't
). And while
's pipes are at least as good as
's, he lacks Mr.
Sugar Ray
's sly humor and easy (if hardly earth-shaking) grasp of musical eclecticism (which, given
's attempted genre-hopping, would help a lot). And as a songwriter,
suggests he has potential on several tunes here, but never enough to overcome his habit of wandering into cliches.
proves that
has talent, but also suggests he got his record deal because he's easy to market rather than being better than his competition; maybe if this is a hit, listeners will get to hear a stronger and leaner presentation of his style in the future. ~ Mark Deming