Travis Tritt reviewed!
Travis Tritt
The Storm
(Category 5)
It’d be easy to sit back and say folks have tired of Travis Tritt, especially from a Yankee perspective. His era — that of Garth Brooks and Clint Black — is only survived by a bland-as-all-get-out Alan Jackson, while Tritt’s own appropriation of the Waylon image gets shakier the more and more reissues remind us how great Jennings was.
But a cursory glance tells us Tritt’s newest, the Randy Jackson(!)-produced The Storm, topped out two spots removed from Billboard’s country album apex. Tritt isn’t so easily convinced of himself. Always a strong songwriter — especially when it concerned war vets — the imbalance of co-writers (Diane Warren, Richard Marx, Rob Thomas) and covers (Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Hank Jr., and fucking Nickelback) looks as if he’s scrounging for the panic button. (Even his once-glorious mullet has been trimmed to slightly more-fashionable hockey hair.) The only real success is his self-penned title track, which gleans a Texas blues nastiness from Stevie Ray Vaughan, though the trick is redoubled on the Shepherd cover, “Somehow, Somewhere, Someway.” Otherwise, Tritt’s too overbearing a vocalist to take on schlock like Warren’s material, and the Marx compositions are just test driving ideas.
— Steve Forstneger
