Hotpipes, The Deadly Poison

When a band asks “How old have we become?” on a song called “Fartknocker,” one has to wonder how the rest of the album’s gonna play out. For Tennessee-based Hotpipes, the result, The Deadly Poison, is part middle-of-the-road jam band, part indie-rock, with a dash of soul and the blues thrown in. Their music seems tailor-made for the college music circuit, and who knows — maybe the band’s hoping for a sidestage gig at next year’s Bonnaroo Festival. They seem like they’d be a perfect fit.

But music’s only part of the game, and unfortunately, lines like “Love has the most subtle sting” (“Dix Dix”) and “It’s a drag when every road is paved with ways to be yourself” (“B-Line”) do little more than remind listeners how deep the band wants them to think it is and how shallow the music really happens to be. While none of The Deadly Poison‘s songs are horrible — and the vocals sound very similar to Chris Cornell, which is a good thing, in my opinion — there’s just nothing that sticks. Given the number of bands struggling to make it in today’s musical landscape, maybe the boys should have let their Music City roots influence the album a bit more. It might have given it some depth.