GARY ALLAN - Get Off on the Pain GARY ALLAN

Get Off on the Pain

[MCA Nashville]

Leave it to Gary Allan to make ex sex sound romantic: “Kiss Me When I’m Down,” a standout track from his latest album, cleverly disguises a booty call with a sweeping melody and rich steel-and-strings orchestration. That kind of sly juxtaposition dominates Get Off on the Pain, Allan’s eighth studio album. He and coproducers Greg Droman and Mark Wright layer robust guitars, steel, piano, Wurlitzer, B3 and strings atop the singer’s trademark Bakersfield barroom style without losing the homegrown feel. Allan’s voice is a textured drawl that evokes Johnny Cash’s world-weary tone and adds dimension to the album’s more spare arrangements. It’s easy for someone of Allan’s talent to get lost among modern country music’s cowboy-hatted clones—but just as his voice cuts cleanly through the arrangements here, he has always managed to make himself heard above the din. Pain suggests he will for quite a while longer.  –KD

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