CRR Review - Ray Davies - Our Country: Americana Act II

RATINGS: A = must own B = buy it C= average D = yawn F = puke

Ray Davies - Our Country: Americana Act II

Rating: C

Iconic songwriter and vocalist/guitarist of Kinks fame, Ray Davies, has returned with a follow-up album on his life in America titled Our Country: Americana Act II. While the album has many good moments…like most sequels, it is not as good as the original.

While this is not an Empire Strikes Back sort of release, there are some great songs on this sucker—heck this Ray Davies after all! But…there are a lot of songs that just didn’t need to be on this album. There are 19 tunes in total…and much of it sounds like stuff not good enough to be on the first release.

That said…there are two very good points to make:

A) Ray Davies has earned the right to do whatever the f*** he wants.

B) The fact that he, as an artist is this prolific at this stage of his life is pretty impressive.

The fact remains that Ray Davies has nothing to prove to anyone…not me…not you…not anyone.

I kinda wish he thought he had something to prove though…as I think that rebel attitude that he has worn on his sleeve for much of his career would have made this a better effort.

It is just that this sucker is just too damn long…that’s all that’s wrong with it. Knock it down to the best ten songs and they would be talking very differently about this album.

In today’s hurry up and wait atmosphere no one has the patience for subtleties or slow moving tales…this album, unfortunately, contains many of both.

I will refrain from doing a song-by-song breakdown…but there are some good ones, some boring ones, come clunkers and some that will grow on you after you listen to them a few times.

While this is far from his best work, it still should be checked out, as when Ray is good….he’s great. There are moments of greatness here.

Okay, I can’t not mention my favorites….here are three great Ray Davies tunes you can discover on Our Country: Americana Act II….“Our Country,” “Oklahoma U.S.A.” and “The Getaway.” Spotify those and decide if you want to buy the CD.

Let’s hope that Ray can put his nostalgia behind him with the upcoming Kinks reunion and just rock out like the pissed off twenty-something that he was back in 1972!

I think he has proven, time and again he is a creative genius…we just gotta find out if he can reach down and unleash yet again!

He did so at times on this one. Other times, he just pleased himself.

At the end of the day, Ray Davies is 74-years-old and still passionate about music and engaged with his past, present and future.

I hope when I reach 74 I have a lot of Ray Davies left in me!

Our Country: Americana Act II Track List
1. “Our Country”
2. “The Invaders” (spoken word)
3. “Back In The Day”
4. “Oklahoma U.S.A.”
5. “Bringing Up Baby”
6. “The Getaway”
7. “The Take”
8. “We Will Get There”
9. “The Real World”
10. “A Street Called Hope”
11. “The Empty Room”
12. “Calling Home”
13. “Louisiana Sky”
14. “March Of The Zombies”
15. “The Big Weird”
16. “Tony And Bob”
17. “The Big Guy”
18. “Epilogue”
19. “Muswell Kills”

By Jeb “Do It Again” Wright