Scott Miller & the Commonwealth
Reconstruction
(Sugar Hill)
We don’t hear too many crack Southern bands in these parts anymore. This live set is a taste of what we’re missing. Miller muses over the landscape (“Why does everything around me have to look the same” from “Amtrak Crescent”), sin, salvation, cars and cards. “Drunk All Around this Town” is a future boozing classic that enters new dimensions when someone hauls out a doob. The crowd at the Down Home in Johnson City, Tennessee, eats it up. The band can crank it when needed, staying subtle when Miller’s tales and observations need to be heard. His insights on religion and despair are intelligent but not too refined to rock.
Doug Taylor
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.