There’s bluegrass and there’s old timey and there’s about a thousand young pups all willing and able to diligently recreate what has already been done. That’s not to say that you can’t hear the affection for what once was in the words and music of the Random Canyon Growlers but it is equally hard to determine this band’s unique selling point.
No fault can be found in their reverential approach to the songs that make up this album with each and every song executed with the kind of dungaree clad precision that you might expect of well-bred boys slumming it Appalachian style. Dang me if you can’t actually taste the authenticity in “Dark As The Night” and “Traveling Kind”! It’s enough to make me slap my thighs do the hillbilly waltz. Well nearly enough. However, there are moments where modern day concerns float momentarily to the top – such as “Keep Your Licence Plates Green” – but they are soon weighed down by banjo picking near Stepford Wives revivalism.
There are times when you think punk never happened and there are times when you wonder if check shirts and a moderately inoffensive beard are the only mark of credibility that a musician of competence needs. “Dickey Ain’t Got All Day” is an inoffensive album that, even allowing for the obvious musical talent, doesn’t actually say anything at all and that, my friends, is surely a sign of the these times.