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TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION
Gunsmoke
MNRK Heavy

Whiskey drinkers!
Hellraisers!
Self-professed sons of the soil!

With drinks poured, fists raised, and smiles wide, TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION a.k.a. THC always know how to have a good time. A collective of tried-and-true rabble rousers and dyed-in-the-wool storytellers, the Texas quintet - Big Dad Ritch (vocals), Cord Pool (guitar), Nevada Romo (guitar), Rado Romo (bass), and Joey Mandigo (drums) - spike ass-whopping hard rock with a kick of country swagger and a whole lot of Texas grit and gusto.

Gathering tens of millions of streams, logging thousands of miles on the road, and energizing countless fans, they deliver ten anthems tailormade to simmer and scorch on their eighth full-length album, Gunsmoke. Its writing process had first started with the band staying at an Airbnb for a month before going on to record in Dallas and at Bell Labs in Northern Oklahoma with producer Trent Bell. The end result was the band's most authentic-sounding album bringing them back to their early years as the purveyors of their own signature style proudly dubbed "red dirt metal". As Ritch explains: "Trent allowed me to get as much of myself into the album as possible. It's similar to our first two records when I was really the captain at the helm. Those records were less polished. So, we got back to the rawness that was there at the beginning." This time around, the musicians wholeheartedly embraced their country and Southern rock stylings as well as a lifelong passion for westerns. "I've always been a western guy," Ritch affirms. "John Wayne is one of my superheroes. You try to model yourself after people you think have good morals and standards. As a big guy, if I walk in and look like a man who has his act together, it's like, 'Here comes this big man'," he laughs. "Gunsmoke is me projecting myself at you like, 'This is what I stand for. This is how I live'."

That message comes through loud and clear on the title track and first single "Gunsmoke". Rustic acoustic guitar crawls through a stomping beat punctuated by waves of groaning distortion. It climaxes on a chantable chorus, "I sell weed and liquor to the city slickers. I can get you there quicker, and like a gun...I smoke." And the bulk of the other songs throughout Gunsmoke also demonstrate how well-booted THC have strived to keep consistently throughout their nearly 20-year career. The wild riffing tosses and turns of "Bones Jones" - a story about "a local entrepreneur" according to Ritch - is also a strong heavy groove-ridden number chock full of riffs and colorful narration lived and sung by the man who knew the real-life character. "In our hometown, there was a guy named 'Bones'," Ritch recalls. "He was about six-foot-seven-inches tall like Lurch from The Addams Family. I'd get weed from him, but he sold everything you could think of. Just weed for me though," he chuckles. Even openers "Deadman" and "Baptized In The Mud" are the perfect autobiographical anthems that sum up the essence of THC, further highlighting their red dirt metal beginnings. "It represents the wild west Texas-Oklahoma area," Ritch further elaborates, "You've got a little red dirt country spilling over into the storytelling and metal. It's a return to the dirt where we came from." And showing the band's tender side would be the heartfelt "She's Like A Song". Uplifted to the heavens by bright guitars and a solid beat, an epic chorus takes flight as Ritch sings, "She's like a song to me, a lovely harmony, a sweet melody", his normally raging voice putting its emotions boldly on display. The ride concludes with the breezy exhale of the BLACK LABEL SOCIETY-sounding vibe of "I'm Gettin' High". Loose acoustic guitar brushes up against his soulful delivery, pairing countrified poetry with a smoked-out guitar solo. The frontman continues, "Even though I'm down on my luck and the repo man just drove off with my truck, I'm still getting high. That's how life is. No matter what, you can still do whatever makes you feel good—go fishing, hunting, or shopping. It's the country side of THC."

And whatever type of burning sensations that Gunsmoke may trigger to both the diehard fan or the first-time listener, it's an album that'll stay well preserved in one's system for as long as TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION keep staying high on life.

4.5 Out Of 5.0

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