‘Alternate Routes’ Finds Reckless Kelly Reclaiming Their Road-Worn Classics (ALBUM REVIEW)

After almost 30 years, country rockers Reckless Kelly are due for another retrospective (their first was released in 2007). Alternate Routes, their new double album, puts the band’s road-tested songs before their fans a second time while walking a line between a best-of collection and a complete reworking of the material. Inspired by the efforts of Taylor Swift and John Fogerty to reclaim ownership of their songs, Reckless Kelly zeroed in on the records they made on Sugar Hill Records, a period in the mid-00s that holds some of their best work, and re-recorded 12 numbers (plus a Side D surprise for vinyl buyers) that have traveled with them ever since.

With one exception, all the songs here come from Under the Table and Above the Sun (2003), Wicked Twisted Road (2005), and Bulletproof (2008), with a heavy emphasis on the latter two. (The one exception is their song “Break My Heart Tonight,” which appeared in 2007 on Americana Masters Series: Best of the Sugar Hill Years.) This period constitutes fertile ground for the band and is one that they at least partially revisited with Bulletproof Live (2019).

Retrospectives are tricky. As a fan, usually the best you can hope for is that you enjoy listening to a new sequence of songs that cut across the years of your devotion. But Alternate Routes offers fans the chance to hear Reckless Kelly approach their songs in the studio again from the perspective of having lived with them night after night for the last two decades. In doing so, the band walks a fine line between clinging to the past and rewriting history, with the risk heightened by what is at stake for them: meaningful ownership of their material.

All in all, Reckless Kelly succeeds admirably in giving their songs a studio home that unifies them under a single production aesthetic, making material spanning a five-year period sound like it was written for one record. A particular relief in every song on this album is that the band has taken apart the centralized, somewhat deadened block of guitars and mandolin on the original recordings and spread them across the mix, giving the songs a fuller, more expansive sound with virtually the same elements.

This doesn’t turn anything on its head, but it gives gems like the haunting ballad “Stick Around,” the harmonically surprising “You Don’t Have to Stay Forever,” and the road-weary “Vancouver” a deeper luster. Rockers like “Nobody’s Girl” and “American Blood” feel like they’ve slipped their leash, and throughout the band members’ contributions are clearer and more affecting. Cody Braun’s shimmering Rickenbacker electric mandolin continues to give the band one of its greatest distinctions, but there are also some significant sonic evolutions. Lead guitarist, Geoff Queen, replaced longtime member, David Abeyta, around 2021, and his fat, chunky sound sits well in these songs and makes a nice juxtaposition, not only with Willy Braun’s lead vocals, but also with the Hammond organ talents of guest Bukka Allen.

Reckless Kelly made very few changes to the arrangements. “Wicked Twisted Road,” their most-streamed song, has been pulled from its original setting and given a full-band arrangement at a slightly quicker tempo. This sprightly version loses none of its melancholy, and, in fact, probably hones a finer edge that cuts a little deeper. Similarly, “Seven Nights in Eire” is a little more lively and lighter on its feet, featuring the acoustic mandolin talents of another guest, Kym Warner. As the band moves into the new phase of its career sans traditional touring, it’s hard to think of Alternate Routes as anything other than a triumph. It’s true, they don’t do anything “new” with their songs, but that hardly seems like the point. There is such a thing as durability, and in a time when ownership of intellectual property faces threats from all sides, strengthening the things that last feels like a vital countermove.