Jekyll + Hyde Zac Brown Band (Southern Ground) Four stars
Zac Brown rightly names his new release after a famous, fictitious schizophrenic, for few artists in this genre-focused era so openly embrace such an eclectic muse.
He sets the tone immediately by opening with the aggressively rhythmic Beautiful Drug, the most electronic-driven track he has recorded, followed by the Celtic melody of Remedy. We then move on to the big-band swing of Mango Tree (a duet with Sara Bareilles) and the grunge-rock guitar crunch of Heavy Is the Head (a duet with Soundgarden's Chris Cornell).
There's also plenty of Brown's signature breezy acoustic, folk-derived style, which emphasises his voice and lyrical smarts. He includes a rare cover in Jekyll + Hyde, a powerful interpretation of Jason Isbell's Dress Blues. Brown and his large band changed record distributors and producers for this album, but it sounds like a logical next step by a talented band.
As always, they make it all sound coherent. They are music lovers with a broad range of influences and they don’t let predetermined musical genres limit their scope.
