Big Joe Burke
Quiver (YVR)

Although often overlooked today, the genre known as alt-country actually existed long before Uncle Tupelo dragged it into the mainstream. Back in olden times (aka the ’80s), a generation of reformed punk rockers—Rank and File, Blood on the Saddle, Tex and the Horseheads—suddenly decided that you didn’t need god-given talent to make it to the stage of your local honky-tonk, just a whole lot of DIY attitude.

Big Joe Burke would have fit right in with that crew, which isn’t necessarily a compliment. Accenting the positives for a second, the imposing-looking singer (think black cowboy hat, town-marshall mustache, and shit-kicking cowboy boots) has produced a sophomore album on which the playing is completely pro without being slick. Burke and his co-guitarist Gord Smithers are tasteful and innovative enough to suggest they’re fans of Pete Anderson, and hired guns add an air of authenticity with sweeping steel guitar, shimmering organ, and old-timey trombone.

The downside is that Burke’s vocals are flatter than the pancakes in Montana. When he’s not draining every bit of life out of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown”, he’s giving the Big Bopper reason to roll over in his grave with the ’50s-flavoured “The Tide”.

While Burke’s probably being totally sincere, “Home Sweet Home” is as bad as Springsteen. Sorry, dude, but the idea of a laid-off factory grunt with a knocked-up wife living in a motor home in a parking lot across the street from his new day job at Wal-Mart isn’t tear-jerking, it’s a Saturday Night Live skit. Give Burke a round of applause, though, for packing enough Nashville clichés into a single song to remind you what gave rise to alt-country in the first place.