38 Special
Drivetrain

Overlooking their unbearable Christmas album from the early 2000s, made by riding the typical American habit of endlessly giving a new look to certain traditional holiday songs, the epitaph of 38 Special’s history truly materializes in 2004, with this final studio work.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge, 38 Special’s rock has now become definitively classic, and they’ve turned into some kind of dinosaurs, otherwise known as a cult band, who barely manage to release this last thing, relying on the inevitable independent label—though one of the most prestigious ones.

The album, for my taste, is ruined by the pursuit of current sounds—meaning ugly ones—in an attempt to give an alternative sheen to what had always been powerful, elegant, precise, and swinging blues rock. In particular, the sound engineering and drumming style are truly hateful: everything is ultra-compressed and therefore distorted cymbals, which invade and pollute the high frequency spectrum, killing the punch, the drive of the music.

Gone too are the warm and round, yet powerful, Peavey amplifiers, which up to then had greatly supported this gifted band's guitar work. In their place are the buzzy, ragged Mesa Boogie amps borrowed from heavy metal. ‘Sti Mesa… one of those collective hangovers among industry insiders that has always stuck in my craw.

On top of the overblown drums, as swollen as a ciambotto (cit. marchigiana for “toad”), and guitars with a chasm in the mids—all super lows + super highs and thus expressionless in the central frequencies for which they were conceived, the ones the human ear appreciates, discerns, and welcomes in their smallest nuances—we get the shouted voices of singers incapable of expressing themselves in such a forced way; thus, awkward and out of context.

The loss of agility and class in order to align with the trendy post rock, nu metal, alternative or whatever—the kind full of echoes, booms, crashes, and clunky rolling music—takes away much and adds nothing to their talent. Even for their destiny, however, since this album fails to hook new young legions of fans, ending up as an unpleasant swan song played away from home, on unfamiliar ground.

“The Play” is the only ballad and perhaps also the high point of this ill-fated release. Its style is post grunge, rocky, gnarled, hard-hitting, psychedelic but, thank goodness, there’s melody, there’s a clear hook in the chorus—despite a kind of tremolo festival, just for the trend factor.

Somehow the album improves towards its end and earns itself a second star along the way, at least. The penultimate track, “Hiding from Yourself”, is for example a predictable but solid number, dynamic with its stop&go moments, counter-choruses, a bridge to vary things… all the enriching little touches in their place, once you put up with the offensively noisy drumming.

The final track “Sheriff’s County Line”, atmospheric and harmonically rich, conveys the sense of an album that really takes flight as it goes on; too bad it’s finished by that point. The guitars had just begun to sound a little alluring, enticing, ready to welcome a raucous cowbell meant to launch the second part of the track at a brisker pace. This is the only—and last—truly beautiful electric guitar sound here for 38 Special, once the princes of guitar tone. So I take it back: the peak of the album is here, at its conclusion, not in the ballad “The Play”.

Small consolation, since the album falls short, marred by its clumsy attempt to update and (re)freshen itself (?), trying to latch on to certain fashionable genres, which are weak anyway, in my opinion. Two stars for regret, and that’s all.

The band is still touring the States, perpetuating those handful of great albums from the eighties in front of their loyal and satisfied fans, without daring to put anything else on the market except for the occasional live album. Donnie Van Zant, however, left some years ago, leaving the good Don Barnes as the only surviving original member—a blessing and a curse for this band. Una prece, a lui e a loro.