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It is an impressive vision, and Nichols’ velvet burr is ideally suited to some of the covers that …Special offers: a brassy, lilting run through Merle Haggard’s Going Where the Lonely Go and Pablo Gad’s reggae staple Hard Times in particular (re-imagined here as both acoustic sing-along and clanging plea for acknowledgement). That song’s message – that we are indeed living in hard times – is one that intermittently makes its presence felt on the record, not least on cocksure opener Different Ways for Different Days, where Nichols reels off a litany of dissatisfaction with modern culture.
…Special is more likeable when it keeps things simpler, as on the sparse, almost trad-folk Nothing and No One and refined late-night feel of Something About the Rain. Nonetheless, it is the showiest thing on here by a mile that led to it becoming Nichols’ first major-label release in 15 years, the somewhat self-explanatory Countrymusicdisco45. Admittedly far more disco than it is country, the song attracted label attention almost immediately after featuring on a Ministry of Sound broadcast, and is a striking indication of the kind of direction Nichols would like to take hereon in.
But in general, the stated aim of keeping things as simple as possible – as well as a desire to capture something of the freshness of live performance – throws up the odd gem, and the musicianship is slick and proficient throughout. The Jeb Loy Nichols Special marks the ninth solo LP in a career evidently concerned with following the whims and concerns of its maker as opposed to any wider notion of what is fashionable or contemporary, and for that it is to be applauded.
--James Skinner
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Then starting from scratch on this guy (well, to me he was new, he already had made great stuff with the Fellow Travellers in the US, where he is originally from) I went for the great albums and loved them all. Other stuff by other artists that mesmerized me came along, I forgot about Mr. Nichols until I went to Wales (a part of England that is) a few weeks ago and remembered this guy had chosen to live there! So I packed my cds in the rental car and drove through wet green landscapes reminding me of previous journeys to Ireland and Scottland. Now the circle is closing and I got his new album and realized how the surrounding countryside, the rough weather, the vast green pastures, the rocky, rain soaked hills - coming from Austria 'mountain' means something different to me - must have affected his work. In a good way. Previous albums and side projects show his interest in reggae and dub but this one is rural, earthen and soaked in Welsh rain. Just imagine a grown man explaining life, its ups (and downs), the world, in melancholy - yet uplifting - songs. In the Welsh countryside, with Nashville untertones. Sparse instrumentation accompanies these songs that are far away from being dull, this is essential storytelling with a charming twist of originality - plus an invitation to dance thrown in with 'Countrymusicdisco45'. Songs about a man digging in the mud, in a good way.
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