Dereconstructed

Some musicians are fine with hitting a comfortable middle ground, and others have to push things to the edges, demanding all or nothing. Lee Bains III is clearly the kind of guy who wants to go hard or go home, and after the slightly too polite tone of his first album with the Glory Fires, 2012's There Is a Bomb in Gilead, he's chosen to put the pedal to the metal with his sophomore effort, 2014's Dereconstructed. Bains clearly wanted this album to rawk, and that's just what it does -- the guitars from Bains and Eric Wallace bark and wail at every turn, and the rhythm section of bassist Adam Williamson and drummer Blake Williamson (who play tight enough that it makes perfect sense that they're brothers) drives these tunes like a big block Hemi in fifth gear. Dereconstructed has all the sweat and swagger you could hope for, and the tunes are full-on hot-rodded Southern rock, melodic but full of scrappy fire and fist-pumping force. Bains and the Glory Fires are clearly a first-class rock band that can deliver the goods, and these tracks capture them in raucous form, while the songs are even stronger than the very fine material on their debut. ~ Mark Deming