Jason Aldean: Relentless Review
Submitted By
May 7, 2007

Jason Aldean
Relentless (Broken Bow Records) May, 2007
Review by Cheryl Breo

Jason Aldean's sophomore CD, "Relentless" proves why he received the Academy of Country Music 's Top Male New Vocalist for 2006.  While this new CD has all the familiar sounds of Jason's "Hicktown" country, "blue collar", he also shows he's not afraid to push the envelope with his music, adding more "rockin', edgy country" tunes.
 
"Johnny Cash", the first single release and "I Use What I've Got" are stomping, up beat songs about pride, living life on your own terms and dealing with the hard times that life's deck of cards sometimes deals us.
 
Jason shows his somewhat romantic side in some "in love with love" songs, like "Relentless", "No", whose lyrics remind us that everything happens just as it is suppose to happen, and "Laugh Until We Cried", a wonderful country story-telling song about a family's nostalgic recollection of their rich history, their lives, sometimes good, sometimes bad…but always times that they "laughed until we cried".
 
On the other side of love, the side of breaking up, lonely and love lost, Aldean gives us "Who's Kissing You Tonight", "Do You Wish It Was Me", and the honky tonk, yet broken hearted, "I Break Everything I Touch".
 
Two tracks are real "pop outs" for me; the first one being "Grown Woman".  It's a wonderful, gritty duet with Miranda Lambert, sung from a man's point of view, giving some no-nonsense, scorned attitude to the woman who just left him.  This is a clever twist on the "woman scorned" theme, where he tells her that a "grown woman should have known better than to use me like some old lipstick that you use up and throw away."  Jason's southern country voice blends like "butter on a biscuit" with Miranda's raspier, rocker voice.
 
The second "pop out" is "Back In This Cigarette", a soulful song about the heartbreak of a love lost.  Jason's voice makes the powerful lyrics come alive with the raw emotion of a man's anguished feelings of regrets about her good-bye…making us almost feel like we are in that motel room with him at 2 am, "trying to put smoke back into this cigarette".  I can almost see the video for this song now.
 
Jason Aldean has certainly marked his territory in the country music industry with this new CD.  "Relentless" is pure Aldean, pure country, pure pleasure.  Add this one to your collection as soon as it's released (May 29th, 2007)!

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