Personnel: Brian Henneman (vocals, guitar, dobro, electric sitar); Eric Ambel (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Joe Flood (vocals, fiddle); Rob Arthur (piano, organ); Mark Spencer (electric piano); Jim Duffy (organ); Mark Ortmann (drums, percussion); Sammy Merendino (percussion).
If LEAN FORWARD, Bottle Rockets' first record after a three-year hiatus, isn't an out-of-the-park grand slam like ZOYSIA or THE BROOKLYN SIDE, it's a solid home run that confirms the BoRox are still one of America's great unsung rock & roll bands. Plenty of roots rockers have written about their love of fast cars, as Henneman does here on "Nothing But a Driver," but not many have come up with a well-observed slice of life about using public transportation, and "Get on the Bus" is a great example of what the Bottle Rockets do so well, with its lean, wiry melody, the energetic banter between the mandolins and electric guitars. The Bottle Rockets fuse a regular guy's sensibilities and concerns with a streetwise intelligence that's smart without sounding arrogant, and their music is solid, Southern-style meat-and-potatoes rock at its best; it's a formula they've mastered over the years, and LEAN FORWARD shows it's still delivering soul-satisfying results more than a decade and a half on.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.81) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]hey continue their recent return to form: Brian Henneman sings tenderly of dead soldiers and bad marriages..."
Paste (magazine) (p.51) - "Atop the stinging double-stop guitar licks of the Bottle Rockets' no-frills latest, optimism and good intentions knock heads with the reality of human imperfection."
