Jason Greeley’s self-titled country album gives the impression that he tried to combine elements of rock in with his standard country sound to give himself more of an edge. The keyword in that last sentence is “try.” Although some of his songs feature rather enticing guitar instrumentals, they only come around the end of his songs, and the rest of it doesn’t stem far from the norm. This keeps his album from being an interesting mix of rock and western and instead becomes a pretentious but bland country album. The songs contain the same one-two drum beat accompanied by acoustics, with lyrical storytelling that makes up the majority of his songs. It’s not that he’s atrocious – he does have a powerful voice and he can play his instruments well. But calling his album “genre-defying fantastic” is like calling a grilled cheese sandwich hot cuisine.

Published in Volume 64, Number 14 of The Uniter (December 3, 2009)