What Condition His Condition Is In

Human Condition
Gary Bennett
(Landslide)

BR549 fans who were saddened by co-founder Gary Bennett's decision to leave the band in 2002 have reason to turn that frown upside down: Bennett is back with an album of mature, heartfelt country music.

The timing is fortuitous for those aforementioned fans. Already this year BR549 have released "Dog Days," an album that stands among their best work from the Bennett and post-Bennett eras. Bennett is in top form, too, on "Human Condition."

Nashville rallied around Bennett's return to the music business. The disc was produced by R.S. Field (Allison Moorer, Webb Wilder) and among the players are Field (multiple instruments), Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart) on guitar, Mark Winchester (Brian Setzer) on bass, Jimmy Lester (Los Straitjackets, Webb Wilder) on drums, Lloyd Green on pedal steel and Marty Stuart on mandolin and electric guitar.

According to his Web site, Bennett had become frustrated with the "retro" tag that had increasingly been placed on BR549 since their ascension from Robert's Western Wear on Nashville's Lower Broadway to the forefront of traditional country music.

Maybe it's because he's been away for a while, but it's easy to see the artistic growth on "Human Condition." The disc is imbued with a sense of world-weariness. That sense, and perhaps Bennett's philosophy for getting back into the game, seem apparent in his cover of Billy Ray Reynolds' "Steel Ball":

Like a steel ball in a roulette wheel,
Tumblin, tumblin' rollin' downhill
Searchin' for the number that will give me the thrill
Like a steel ball in a roulette wheel

Walkin' and talkin' and a breakin' my back
Five hundred miles on a railroad track
Can't go forward when you're lookin' back
All I own in one little stack

Bennett's not looking back to the old days, good as they were. Rather, he's commiserating with the listener, who likely knows that sometimes you're the train but sometimes you're the track. Such is the case for the working stiff in the title cut:

Beats all I've ever seen,
Just dog eatin' dog and there isn't no referee
'Times I'd like to scream,
But the human condition is damn sure conditionin' me

There are pick-me-ups, such as "Headin' Home," in which a road-hardened troubadour gets back to his people, perhaps the same special someone of "Just Wanna Be With You." And the comforts of home are the "Things That Mean a Lot to Me," in good times and bad. "Better Than This," a co-write with Todd Snider, is an upbeat tune about getting out, and getting your piece of the pie. Throughout, "Human Condition" is peppered with Vaughan's crisp guitar work.

Overall, though, Bennett explores the serious side of his songwriting. It's no wonder. He dedicates the album to a murdered nephew and a friend who died in a car accident, both of whom were killed a week apart while Bennett was working on the disc. As a result, the real world is all over "Human Condition." The "Ship in a Bottle" is only figurative; it's really about sinking to the bottom of that bottle. The song sounds like a companion to "My Illusion," in which a once-promising life becomes a mirage.

Bennett returns to the illusion theme, and leaves us with the rocking "American Dream," in which the narrator wants to "take his girl to a Rockwell world," back before JFK's assassination when there seemed to be more hope and that dream was a little more concrete. In closing, though, he allows that "maybe things'll get a little better." It's all over in 34 minutes and change; a clear concise statement announcing Bennett's re-emergence on Music Row.

His return is a welcome one indeed.