The fantasizing works both ways Gilbert spends many a track fixating on what a woman would want with a hoodlum like him. An onerous combination of gendered expectations maybe, but notable for excluding more domesticated, middle-class standards of femininity. Go down in a blaze of glory I always loved that story." By the second verse, he's escalated the qualifications for his ideal woman, visualizing a religious devoutness that would counterbalance her venturesome streak. Little miss watch-for-blue-lights, while I drive you can hold that. a little partner in crime come hell or high water she's down, she's ridin' with me. When he sings of a love interest riding shotgun in "You Could Be That Girl," he's imagining a risk-sharing companionship that bears a very faint resemblance Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen." "Well, I'm lookin' for a Bonnie," Gilbert announces, "lookin' for a P.I.C. On the surface, Gilbert makes few concessions to the mellowing trend in male country expression. His performances are instantly recognizable, often confrontational and pack a punch. He has a somewhat limited vocal instrument - neither supple nor naturally athletic - but he uses it to accentuate the extremes of his performing persona, channeling stubborn small town resilience through his clenched drawl, airing aggression through his strenuous, sandpapered rasp and hinting at pent-up ferocity with surly, monosyllabic spoken asides.
But the thing that really makes the song, and much of Gilbert's music, feel as pugnacious as it does is the way that he sings. Quickly, they're submerged beneath a squall of rock guitar whose flashy, muscular '80s-invoking attack is a specialty of Gilbert's producer Dann Huff.
The song's intro briefly isolates layers of the album's dense sound - a syncopated acoustic guitar figure, a thumping bass and hissing hi-hat pattern. "We know ain't nobody scared now," he insists during the chorus, and it feels like he's staring down dangers (Drunken brawls? Trouble with the law?) that can come with unrestrained revelry. His stony, murmured delivery of the verses' low-slung, minor-key melody gives the song a menacing undertone. When Gilbert goads listeners to cut loose, the invitation lacks the carefree attitude of his peers' once-ubiquitous party-starters. Instead, he projects the persona of the prickly-yet-repentant bad boy who leans on his swagger even as he exaggerates the labor of confessing his hidden sensitivity.Įven his version of a party jam, lead single "The Weekend," is of a different character than the bulk of those that populated radio playlists. It was evident all along that Gilbert would never be the country act crooning sweet, settled nothings alongside the Backstreet Boys. If anything, the 32-year-old, Georgia-born singer and songwriter digs in his heels on his fourth album, The Devil Don't Sleep, making clear that he's committed to not only inhabiting but thoroughly exploring a particular kind of bro-ish identity: the tough guy tentatively wading into introspective territory. In the midst of all this recalibrating, Brantley Gilbert, who's behind some of the brawniest country radio singles of the last half-decade, has declined to budge from the approach that helped propel him from the roster of Average Joes, a scrappy hick-hop label operating on the fringes of the country mainstream, to Valory, an imprint of industry powerhouse Big Machine, and then onto the charts. The momentum in the format has shifted in increasingly diffuse directions - to falsetto-exploiting lovermen sensitive types boy band- style romancers introspective brooders rough-edged, self-aware rogues and temperate neotraditionalists. The perception was that those songs amounted to little more than crass capitalizing on hollow tropes, and over the last year and a half, a significant number of country's male acts - known quantities and newcomers alike - have steered away from bro sensibilities. A few years back, the breezily macho delivery of backwoods come-ons over big, blunted guitar riffs and spindly programmed beats seemed like a reliable and easily replicable formula for hits. Few contemporary country trends in recent memory attracted more dismissive responses than bro country did at its height. Well, I'm lookin' for a Bonnie Lookin' for a P.I.C A little partner in crime, come hell or high water She's down, she's ridin' with me Little miss, watch for blue lights While I drive, you can hold that.
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