A few months back I wrote about Columbia, South Carolina’s American Gun’s 2006 debut album, Dark Southern Hearts. At the time, I lamented the fact that I was getting to the American Gun party so late in the game. The band took pity on me and mailed me an advance copy of their now-released follow-up album, The Means and the Machine. This time around, instead of lamenting my tardiness to the American Gun bandwagon, I am sitting here feeling like I should apologize for being so late on writing this entry. The album has been on my iphone for a month now and I’ve been selfish. See, I put stuff I need to listen to for ninebullets on the iPhone, and once I’ve listened and either written something about the album or decided that I don’t wanna write about it, I delete it from the phone and put on another album. However, I’ve been enjoying the cd so much I was trying to delay the inevitable deletion from my phone.

The first time I mentioned these fellas, I compared them to Lucero. This time, the impression is reinforced by an inspired cover of Lucero’s “All the Same to Me”. As I also mentioned before about the last effort, this album features the dueling songwriting of Donald Merckle and Todd Mathis, one being dark and moody, while the other keeps things a bit more upbeat and foot-stomping. This time around, however, they seem to have found a little more common ground, which makes the album feel more cohesive. Another great addition to this album was bringing in the production talent of Chris Stamey (The DBs, Whiskeytown, Caitlin Cary, Alejandro Escovedo, Yo La Tengo, Tift Merritt) and the pedal-steel work of Flying Burrito Brothers picker Al Perkins. Even though there is no track on this album as awesome as “Someone to Blame” from the debut, I must say that, as a whole, this album does plenty to propel the band forward and earn new fans while doing nothing to alienate old fans. So, with great sadness, I will listen to their take of “Moonshiner” one last time, press the publish button, and remove it from the iPhone…but not before I add it to my iPod’s Essential Listening playlist.

American Gun - Drunk Girls
American Gun - This Old Town
American Gun - Jesus Gave Us Rock And Roll

American Gun - Someone to Blame (from debut)

American Gun’s Official Site, American Gun on myspace, Buy The Means and the Machine