Have At It - Review

Perhaps the cowpoke looking off into the distance on the cover of this debut from Knoxville's Have Nots is leader John Paul Keith searching for a last name, or maybe for someone named George Ringo Mick with whom he can form a Beatles/Stones cover band as a side project. Regardless, somewhere along the line, erstwhile V-Roy Keith (he left just before Just Add Ice was recorded and, as leader of the Nevers, recorded an unreleased album for Sire) definitely found songwriting smarts as well as a homey voice that charms with its earnestness and affability.

Keith and company have at a variety of styles on the twelve songs here, including a couple of Marshall Crenshaw-styled pop/early rock hybrids ("She Put the Hurt on Me" and "Knoxville Town") and the kind of twang-pop favored by Keith's aforementioned former outfit ("Fragile").

"Best Mistake (I'd Ever Make Again)" and "Bad Boy" are close kin to the rock-savvy, torn-jeans country that's all over Dwight Yoakam's latest. And with "Blue All Over", there's even a classically-constructed country weeper - complete with unassuming solos of both pedal steel and fiddle - that's given the same appealing no-great-expectations presentation as its compatriots.

-Rick Cornell - No Depression Magazine