Album Review: Hard Working Americans - Weâre All in This Together
Thereâs no doubt Hard Working Americans have fun when theyâre performing. The exuberance and excitement of the jamband supergroup is palpable on its first live album, Weâre All in This Together, and is personified in Todd Sniderâs rap toward the end of âI Donât Have a Gun.â
âMy fellow Americans - welcome aboard our Hard Working Americans traveling cavalcade of chaos and campaign to reinstate the most natural laws of absurdity to their original, upright and locked position,â he says as the band vamps behind him. He then breaks into a hilarious rave that borrows from âWho Do You Love?â as the crowd goes nuts.
And that fairly reasonably sums up the atmosphere at an HWA concert. Good-time rock ânâ roll; good humor from singer/songwriter/harp blower Snider; and expert musicianship from guitarists Neal Casal (Chris Robinson Brotherhood/Circles Around the Sun) and Jesse Aycock; keyboardist Chad Staehly (Great American Taxi); and Widespread Panicâs rhythm section, bassist Dave Schools and drummer Duane Trucks.
Over 80 minutes, the band runs through 13 songs that include Hard Working Americansâ originals like âRoman Candles,â revamped versions of Sniderâs solo tracks such as âIs This Thing Working?â and well-chosen covers including a spectacular take on Chuck Berryâs âSchool Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell).â
As enjoyable - and all-out fun - as this music can be, thereâs no getting around the fact that most of the band members are even better when working their day jobs. Snider is a charismatic frontman, but his solo performances are more entertaining; Casalâs Circles Around the Sun, which provided the pre-show and intermission music for 2015âs Fare Thee Well concerts, is hard to beat; and Widespread Panic is known as Widespread Mother-Fucking Panic for a good reason.
HWA are powerful. But they havenât earned their MF just yet.
While there are no dogs on this record, there are only a handful of out-and-out irresistible moments, which include the album-opening âMission Accomplished,â the aforementioned Berry cover, a head-banging version of âAnother Trainâ and the title track, which finds Snider talking about how the band came together when the members pulled up next to the reformed folk singer - who was outside looking for an answer that was supposed to be blowing in the wind - in a van that was spewing pot smoke.
These are the moments that show the band - which came together in 2014 - has potential to be a real powerhouse after some more time together.
As hard working as these Americans are, even they have their limits. Casal finally decided he couldnât be in three bands simultaneously and has left the group. Daniel Sproul will be with them as they hit the road and will appear on their next studio album, Schools said in a recent interview with Glide magazine.
Grade card: Hard Working Americans - Weâre All in This Together - B
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