Reviewed by Peter Dilley

Pitched squarely at the mainstream market, and sometimes using "colourful" language to get the point across, the debut from Minneapolis-based singer/songwriter Brown mixes brash alt-country tracks like the opener "Las Vegas Blvd" and "Till My Lawyer Says Otherwise", with the more ponderous "Fortress Americana" and the acoustic folk stylings of "Dirtroads", "Joe Lewis" and the title track. Russ knows how to pack quite a punch with his gritty subject matter, whether it's the hard-edged social commentary of "Thrift Store Suit", or the broken relationship narrative on "Fall Into Memphis". Cosy big bucks CCM this very definitely isn't, but Russ ploughs his furrow as a songwriter with commendable honesty and integrity, commenting to me that "a song like 'Samurai Blues' would never be on a Christian-oriented label album for it's lack of 'happy endings' and ambiguity, but I think it's the best song I've ever written, and THAT is what I think God wanted me to do, not redo whatever CCM flavour of the month happens to be out there."

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