Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Sometimes all you want from an album is to have a big stupid smile of unrepentant joy plastered all over what is otherwise could be a thoughtful and sensible face.
Music is not just there to make you think, reflect and contemplate the meaning behind the songs, sometimes it is more than enough to just really understand that what we are here for ultimately is too have a bit of fun and entertain ourselves without ever hurting anyone or anything else. For The BossHoss and their latest album, God Loves Cowboys, this is Country Rock with an outrageous smile and the knowing nod to an era when a lyric could raise a grin without going down the endless road of over sexualisation or resorting to outdated stereotyping.
Whichever deity happens to rule the iron over your life, or if indeed the gratitude of freewill acts as a camouflaged guide, if it has led you to the BossHoss then let the merriment begin in earnest for there is so much to enjoy throughout God Loves Cowboys. If as a listener, you only take it in once, then there is no hope for you, you may as well give up listening to music and see if rearing hamsters is more in keeping with your demeanour.
This group of desperados who carry the affectionate use of words as if they more fond of them and their purpose than a night in barn surrounded by drink and a mean guitar are completely and utterly musically superb. At no point does the listener ever believe that devotion is a one way street, this is very much a reciprocated action between musician and those really paying attention. The spark is seen to light up as if Michelangelo himself had been commissioned to depict a scene in which a double entendre had slapped humanity and the resulting laughter was one that set the world on a new course of enlightenment.
Tracks such as Whatever, Liberty of Action, the very superb Backdoor Man, the anguish and anger in Don’t Gimme That, Killers and the unsubtle cover which gives the album its very awesome finish, Cameo’s Word up, a song that seems, no matter the genre, to almost blend in seamlessly to the proceedings whilst simultaneously taking out a pitcher of mountain made hooch from a 100 yards.
Some albums are just meant to cheer the soul and in God Loves Cowboys, it might just be the best record you could steer your wallet towards.
Ian D. Hall