Number Seven kicks off with “Fools Gonna Fly,” the sort of bluesy roots rock/soul number that immediately proves Will Hoge not only has a voice that’s as good as, if not stronger than, many other rock and/or country artists but also that his songwriting is as sharp as anyone on music row. From the opening line to the closing lines, the song sets the listener up for what comes over the course of the eleven tracks found throughout the record.
“Too Old To Die Young” and “Goddamn California” are both sterling examples of country/rockers, complete with atmospheric pedal and lap steel guitars and while Will Hoge isn’t technically a country artist, country music certainly has made room for music like his, particularly songs like these two. The band’s performance on these – and the rest of the songs on the record – is tighter than a woman’s spanx.
What’s interesting about Number Seven is that the album starts off with those rockers but turns into a great mid-tempo singer/songwriter album on many of the other tracks like the stark story song about a downtrodden man who is doing anything he can to help his family survive in these trying times, while “Silver Chain” is a song I could hear playing on Willie’s Roadhouse Sirius XM channel right next to Jamey Johnson and Kris Kristofferson. It’s that good of a song. If there was a song that country radio might take a chance on this record – with Will as the singer – it might just be “Gone,” a song with all of the right moves and something that recalls better recent singles from Sugarland and Lady Antebellum in terms of ‘epic’ melody.
The record closes with two songs that could be really sad if you just listened to them without paying attention to most of the words. “Trying To Be A Man” is the kind of strong storytelling that used to routinely be on country albums (it’s about a man coping with falling in love with a girl and then having tragedy happen during the birth of their child) while the lead single “When I Get My Wings” sings in a blues-filled rasp about trying to get over the loss of his wife – to death – and how he’s trying to get closer to her. It’s an interesting pair of songs to end a record on but you know what? They are probably the best pair of songs on the album.
Number Seven is clearly evoking classic country/rockers like Neil Young, Tom Petty and The Band but it never, ever feels like Will Hoge is copying or trying to be them. Instead, he’s used their templates to craft another steady, and downright fantastic collection of songs that is as good as anything you’ll hear coming out of Nashville, Los Angeles or New York this year.
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