Album Review: Drew Kennedy – An Audio Guide To Cross Country Travel

Road trip: Journey via automobile, often unplanned or impromptu.

An Audio Guide to Cross Country Travel: Thinking man’s soundtrack for said road trip.

Another explanation, of course, could be “Third album by Texas transplant and wordsmith Drew Kennedy;” however, since Kennedy’s musical aesthetic defies mainstream country molds somewhere between Americana and indie singer/songwriter, definitions aren’t nearly as important to this record as directions.

East, west, north and south–“life on the road” songs are intrinsic to country music and its icons Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Jerry Reed, yet they remain tricky territory: For the average listener, a life spent sleeping on a speeding tour bus or a rumbling big rig in search of the next big break can be largely foreign terrain.

In that regard, Kennedy successfully brings an accessible twist to this common theme. As a loose concept album, its strengths lay in his ability to effectively craft uncontrived lyrics and organize them into two universally recognized aspects of meaningful travel: the journey and the destination.

While getting there may be half the fun, Kennedy both celebrates and laments his cases of rambling fever. On the straightforward, Pat Green-like “Miles From Anywhere,” he wails “But if I stop now/What if I miss out/On the one thing that turns it all around?” As a reflection of the monotony of going through the motions, the tune is a nice contrast to the emotion-fueled “Rolling Around in the Bed,” the only co-write (with Kent Agee) on the disc. As a standout song that contrasts the rattling of a man’s possessions in his truck bed with the images of his lover and another man, it follows a very different journey down the trail of an escape route.

While the bulk of the album is tied up in wandering, Kennedy skillfully carves out specific, tangible vignettes, including a hotel room in “Room #27,” a mechanic’s garage in the oddly philosophical “Headlights” and a window seat over a hopping cityscape in “Buzzing Like a Wire.” Other destinations are linked to geographical points—including “St. Abilene” and the haunting “Cincinnati”—that follow how relationships form and dissolve according to location and the ways those interactions, in turn, become a driving catalyst for change.

Kennedy plows through these songs by bending and twisting melodies in a way that makes ordinary words about ordinary subjects seem special. In the rare instances he turns on cruise control—love songs “Love and Rain” and “Songbird” seem out of place in the collection, although the latter showcases his best vocal performance of the album. Kennedy’s voice can skew nasally and sound occasionally out of place sans the honky-tonk heartache usually associated with the country and Texas music genres, but the emotion of “Songbird’s” descriptions come through fully on the chorus’ declaration “She don’t know why/Songbirds can’t help but to fly.”

The album was produced by Kennedy and Matt Powell, who also plays a host of instruments on the record. The pair is joined by drummer Matthew Briggs, Geoff Queen on steel and Stefano Intelisano on keys, who help to create a wide mix of sounds that mesh well without becoming predictable or sounding thrown-together. By the numbers, An Audio Guide to Cross Country Travel clocks in at 11 songs, 50 minutes and 24 seconds —but then again, this is an album best measured in miles, not minutes.