Album Review: All Hell by Daughn Gibson

Daughn Gibson's previous band, the Pennsylvania stoner-metal trio Pearls and Brass, evoked the cigarette-smoke drag of a Harley Davidson ripping through the desert and blasting out classic rock riffs. A strong look, but there's an element of dress-up to that kind of rock'n'roll posturing. In reality, Gibson was driving trucks, among other things, and while his new solo guise might reflect more honesty or depth, it's no less rugged or brave.

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I was recently listening to All Hell, the debut album by Daughn Gibson, and queued up right after it in iTunes was Lil B’s The Basedprint 2. As the last track of All Hell segued into the opening track of The Basedprint 2, I thought it was the same damn album. That’s ’cause All Hell has a somewhat similar cloud-rap sound — without the rapping, of course, but the music’s something like a Clams Casino instrumental.

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On paper, Gibson's combination of traditional country samples and electronics might appear ham-fisted. Well-worn lyrical imagery culled from the lonesome roads and hard-living country crooners of yore would be threadbare if not for the keenly sampled and looped instrumentation bolstering them. Gibson avoids awkward genre mash-ups with memorable vocal melodies and a knack for seamlessly matching timbres of the traditional and contemporary on the album's early standout tracks, "In the Beginning" and "Tiffany Lou." By the title track at album's end, the typewriter percussion, synth fills, and Gibson's deeply echoing voice owe more to Scott Walker's darkly experimental output than anything from Johnny Cash.

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