Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is Social Distortion’s seventh studio album and the follow up to 2004’s impressive Sex, Love and Rock’n’Roll. This 2004 effort showed maturity in lyrics and in song writing, introducing a punk sound with a more blended influence from blues, roots and classic rock and roll than their previous efforts. Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes continues on with this more mature rock sound, to the point where the punk on this album is hard to spot. While the band has always been know for their The Clash and Ramones style of punk infused with a heavy dose of blues, roots, folk and rockabilly, this album more resembles the classic American rock and roll sounds of The Black Crowes, the blues rock of The Rolling Stones, and the Americana of a watered down Hold Steady. Singer/guitarist Mike Ness’ slick and polished production may add to this mature rock, less raw punk sound, as does the fleshed out orchestration - Classic rock sounding songs like California (Hustle and Flow) and Can’t Take It With You feature honky tonk keys and soul inspired female backing vocals. Lyrically, themes do revisit love, relationships, and redemption for Ness’ drug riddled past that were brought to audiences previously. Bakersfield and Writing On The Wall are quasi love ballads, Diamond In The Rough screams redemption, and even the lead single Machine Gun Blues, while being a character story set in the 1930s, still echoes issues possibly haunting Ness from his past. Social Distortion’s rebellious and powerful punk roots do sneak through on songs like Gimme The Sweet And Lowdown, the acoustic opener Road Zombie and Alone And Forsaken (an exciting Hank Williams cover – Social Distortion sure know how to punk up a great country song effectively! See their cover of Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire). Overall, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is not a bad album at all. However it is not as exciting and punchy as the well-rounded country-punk of Sex, Love and Rock’n’Roll.
Published on cornershopstudios
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