Jelly Roll - Beautifully Broken

Whatever you think of Jelly Roll, there’s no doubting that his self-anointed lore as the face-tattooed, reformed sinner with the big, rasping blues voice has delivered intrigue in a world saturated with polished boots and buckles. Theoretically this should set him up to deliver a project that shouldn’t have to work so hard to be interesting. Yet, the landing on Beautifully Broken is frustratingly pedestrian, both in its safe pop-rock sound and its often shrug-worthy lyricism. It’s a perfectly fine offering from an artist who is capable of being better than perfectly fine.

Despite heavy handed production, complete with those ‘00s boyband-esque echoey “uh’s,” it’s a relatively strong start on opener ‘Winning Streak.’ “Hello, my name’s Jason” he sings, opening up about the struggle of addiction and the long path away from it. We hear a similarly tortured artist on ‘Burning,’ with its dusky western beat and an electric guitar that sounds like it’s being streamed through a car horn, which has become so commonplace on country radio.“Turns out shame is just another shade of doubt,” he sings, his desperate and honest vocal cutting through. Taken together, the tracks hint at an album of introspection, perhaps even examination, but as we move further along, things peter out into a well-meaning but beige mass.

Lacking much of the nuance or social commentary we’ve heard on tracks like recent Ernest co-release ‘I Went To College/I Went To Jail,’ the tracklist should’ve been the first ominous indication of the platitudes to come. ‘Heart of Stone,’ ‘I Am Not Okay,’ ‘Liar’ and ‘When The Drugs Don’t Work’ plod the song titles. Whilst addiction and mental health are admirable topics to address, to continually do so requires that the artist have something new to say, or at least a new way to say something familiar. This doesn’t often appear to be the case.

The album title itself is a mesh of his previous efforts, combining 2020’s A Beautiful Disaster with 2021’s Ballads of the Broken, suggesting a certain inertia at source. Lines become increasingly redundant. “It’s all gonna be alright” on ‘I’m Not Okay.’ “Everybody lies, everybody picks one side, everybody cries sometimes, it’s just what it is,” he offers on ‘Everybody Bleeds.’ On this “rags or rich, life’s a bitch” sort of tale, the rule that country music is apolitical does some heavy lifting to shush its own caveat that this doesn’t apply to the travails of the working man, feeling particularly gutless in the current economic context and JR’s own usual willingness to be outspoken.

He's best when he leans into the gospel influences on songs such as ‘Get By’ and ‘Unpretty,’ the warm and rousing backing vocals giving some much needed texture and bolstering his own. Similarly, when he strips it back completely, as on mgk duet ‘Time of Day,’ you’re reminded of the skilled simplicity he can bring, and how effective it can be. “I don’t cry like I used to cause I know these tears don’t wash my sins away and I don’t pray like I used to cause I don’t think I deserve the time of day,” he sings on the elegant piano ballad. ‘What It Takes’ brings a similarly welcome vulnerability in its unflinching look at what addiction takes from a person.

None of this is to say that this album is an unpleasant listen. Released 20 years ago, it would have found success on the soundtrack of a noughties teen TV show that needed to fill eight 24-episode seasons. Over-produced and intent on conveying an upstanding yet bland moral message, it all starts to blend into one after a while. You’ll have a good enough time listening to it, just don’t expect to remember the names of any of the songs in years to come.

6/10

Jelly Roll’s 2024 project, Beautifully Broken, is available everywhere on October 11 via BBR/BMG/Republic Records/Universal Music Group.

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