Justin Townes Earle

Justin Townes Earle has about as much grit as Michael Buble.

That’s a harsh statement to make about anyone, let alone the son of Americana icon Steve Earle. But with NGCWYFAMN—which must have been named to stop journalists from writing about it—JTE has watered down the whiskey. The bite is gone. There’s no burn at the back of the throat.

Earle has given us a smooth record. It’s relaxing. He’s nothing but honest. And there’s something very endearing about him. But it’s the “you’re a sweet guy” kind of endearment. Forget about the “amen, that’s what soul is” kind. It’s as if Earle has forgotten why we listen to the blues. We’ve got John Mayer already. Who we’re missing is Johnny Cash.

“When I was young I was dumb and I was free,” Earle croons, in perfect pitch, without the subtlest creak, without a single wrinkle on his body. Well, buddy, you’re 30 years old. Try me again when the colonoscopy results come in.

For the most part, he makes the mistake of using his Apollonian voice to present Dionysian problems. “Baby’s Got a Bad Idea” is the one exception, and it’s hard to praise. His voice hasn’t matured enough to scrape in the way he wants it to. The piano solo gets played by every two-bit in the tourist traps of Memphis. The guitar part is cheesy.

With Harlem River Blues, Earle’s last release, the band figured out how to shore up Earle’s weaknesses. The guitars were gritty and the background singers were soulful, even when Earle wasn’t. But this album has the band-members quietly strumming from afar, allowing Earle’s voice to shine through. Even iTunes has noticed the genre switch—from “Americana” to the amorphous and historically mediocre domain of “singer/songwriter.”

Earle’s strength is his songwriting. Though the lyrics are rarely provocative—in the one instance of profanity he actually does mean “female dog”—Earle has a knack for quietly expressive storytelling: “Shadows dance across the street, the wind seems to whisper her name.”

But the stories are too often tepid. He confesses rather than grieves. And sometimes we want the whiskey straight.