Danny Worsnop - The Long Road Home (2017)
The fact that Danny Worsnop released a country album is fucking confusing to me. A British scene kid who was screaming in a metalcore band with electronics, and then turned into "I'M GONNA BE A MODERN CLASSIC ROCK ICON!! YEAH, ROCK 'N ROLL!!!" and now we're at the point where he's trying to be a country star. I don't know how that shit just.. Happens. Like I totally get Oli Sykes moving to lighter music slowly over time because it was a build-up, and that's still seen as the big "holy fuck, that was a 180" moment for deathcore/metalcore, but hardly anyone is acknowledging that Danny Worsnop, a guy known fo- You know, fuck what he's known for: A guy from Gilberdyke, North Yorkshire making a fucking COUNTRY album. Strangely enough, to his credit, you really can't detect a British accent on this album, because his voice (which is actually quite good) sounds so uniquely "I'm a country boy, born and raised" that you'd never even begin to imagine he was one of them FILTHY COMMIE BASTARDS! England is where the communists are from, right? Or..? Fuck it, that's besides the point. Anyhow, music and stuff, right? Yeah. I think I can get behind that.
I don't really like much of what Danny Worsnop is musically affiliated with, at least at this point in time as of writing, but the dude certainly did develop a nice voice over the years: He sounds like he just got done smoking a pack of cigs and slammed down an entire bottle of whiskey "for the taste", for fuck's sake. Dude certainly has a voice that demands attention, even if his actual technical ability probably isn't that great. I mean, this is a dude that you'd hate on online but would love to hear in person if he was sitting at some bar with an acoustic guitar. If you're a fan of Danny Worsnop's other work, I absolutely cannot safely guarantee that you'll like this album, even if you're one of those annoying Tumblr teenagers that constantly reblogs photos of him and Ben Bruce under the assumption of "they secretly dated at some point! they HAD to have!!" no matter a complete lack of evidence, because the mind of a fanboy/fangirl is an odd place to be. Believe me: I love Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge, even entertained the thought of a few theories for the hell of it.
Unfortunately, no matter how cool your voice is, you -really- need to have a special level of songwriting talent to pull off a country album, because I can already tell you that even if you haven't heard this album, you definitely fucking have.. Just by other artists. There's plenty of slower tunes on here meant to show you the pain this cowboy's been through, some country rock tunes to show you that he ain't no easy goin' cowpoke, and even fucking pop-country tunes meant to hype up the bros. I mean.. Listen to "Mexico", it's almost offensively bland in its lyrical content describing drinking Bud beer (whether it's Lite or not is up to the listener), pretty girls, wanting to vacation, let loose, blue skies, skinny dipping.. Come the fuck on, the only things missing are references to trucks, dogs, and loving God. It's such a fucking cliche of a song that it almost sounds like Danny Worsnop is an alien trying to blend in, or dare I say it.. Trying too hard, or maybe not even trying at all. It's weird like that: Is he trying too hard to appeal to the country crowd, or really not even trying at all? That's some deep shit.
It's disappointing to me that this is his first solo album because it's one of those things that sounds like it's going to be here one week and gone the next. There's not much here to grab and hook Asking Alexandria/We Are Harlot fans, and there's also not much here to really help distinguish Danny Worsnop from other country stars aside from his voice, which he can't really rely on as a crutch when the actual songs aren't that good. Its main appeal and chance for relevancy is such a small market: AA/WAH fans who are also into country, and think for a second if you've ever actually met one. I guess it was his dream to release this album, and I respect that because he followed the dream, and it's really not a -bad- album, but it's disappointing with how cliche and/or unmemorable it can be, making Danny Worsnop's stories of addiction, women, and whatever else lack that "oomph" to actually stick with you as anything more than "that time Danny Worsnop did country", but hey, it's better than my country album, and I can put my ego aside and fully admit that because I don't even fucking have a country album out.
6/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
