Between the Devil & the Deep Blue Sea (Special Edition)

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Bringing huge, Southern rock riffs to the world of slick post-grunge, Black Stone Cherry bring the heavy stuff on their third album, Between the Devil & the Deep Blue Sea. If Black Stone Cherry have proven that they’re good at anything over the course of their last two albums, it’s that they know when to go big, and they do just that on the album opener, “White Trash Millionaire.” Opening with a stomping riff, the song kicks off the album on the right foot with a stomping down-home country-rock riff. Country swagger dominates the guitar work on “Let Me See You Shake,” a song that seems readymade for the strip club with its sleazy, churning riffage. It’s not all country-influenced hard rock, though, as a good chunk of the album finds the band showing off their more sensitive side with songs like “Won’t Let Go” and “Stay,” which still have some solid rock at their foundation, but lose the confident strut that Black Stone Cherry build for themselves. In a genre that's grown more and more homogeneous as its radio dominance has spread, a band like Black Stone Cherry is kind of refreshing, bringing something a little dirty and grimy to a sound that’s usually so polished, and while it’s definitely more Kid Rock than Lynyrd Skynyrd, it’s got a whole lot more country than some of their contemporaries are bringing to the table.