The Road

Having enjoyed the movie No Country For Old Men as much as I did, I decided to check out Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

It's the story of a father and son walking through a postapocalyptic America. It is quite a moving book. As the description on the back states this is "an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of". What would you do in a lawless society? Would you turn into a savage? Stick to a moral compass? Hopefully we will never had to make those types of decisions.

With few flashbacks to the pre apocalyptic world, the story concentrates on the moment by moment journey of the father and his young son as they work their way to the coast unaware of what will be there. McCarthy paints a dreary landscape with swirling and ever-present ash. The lack of sustenance coupled with human savagery, at times, is almost unbearable.

You follow along not knowing what the coast has in store for these two characters. What you're left with an example of love that has no bounds.

Warpaint

If you're any kind of Black Crowes fan you'll, more than likely, enjoy their newest effort, Warpaint.

They may not strut around with that Stones-like swagger as in days past but they can still put out a consistent album. While Warpaint does not have that commercial quality of By Your Side or the trippy sounds of Lions it does come through with its fair share of blues influenced songs.

This is not the album to look for if you need the up-tempo rockers, although Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution and Walk Believer Walk fit the bill. My favorites on this one are Oh Josephine and Locust Street, which are more of a ballad in tempo.

Chris Robinson seems to have rested his vocal chords and he does an ample job of coming through on most tracks. The loss of Marc Ford and Ed Harsch are felt on this album. Not that Luther Dickinson, of the North Missippi All Stars, doesn't come through on guitar though; there is some scorching slide work on this album. However Adam MacDougal doesn't add enough to the mix on keyboards to make his presence known.

But as anyone that follows the Crowes knows, this band has always been the brothers Robinson and Steve Gorman on drums.

They've often been called derivative of the Rolling Stones or the Allman Brothers, and they may well be. But the Black Crowes stick to what they know and do it well.