Mike Ness

Stepping away from longtime outfit of noise Social Distortion, singer Mike Ness dons a rustic persona and makes a cover album of rockabilly and country songs. In homage to his self-professed roots, the disc includes renditions of obscure tracks by the likes of Marvin Rainwater, Jean Shepard and George Jones among others. Ness's attempts fail as the outcome is nothing less than a karaoke disc of amazingly rendered rock and roll instrumentals with the sad and unfortunate aspect of having his abrasive, annoying and spiritless vocals lie on top of the mix, which smothers any possibility of experiencing the sensation called enjoyment. The overall rushed-sounding product insinuates that Ness was not only extremely bored with himself, but also suspiciously that he was more concerned with trying to add a hinge of credibility to his persona by covering rare songs.