Hayes Carll
KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories) (Lost Highway)

KMAG YOYO’s opener, “Stomp and Holler”, will bring a tear to the eye of anybody who used to get drunk to Jason and the Scorchers’ Fervor back in the country-punk ’80s, with the caveat that Hayes Carll—in contrast to Jason Ringenberg, bless his big, goofy heart—can actually sing. And it’s all tradition from there on in for the Texas-based singer-songwriter. Hell, he lifts the whole melody for “Chances Are” from Willie Nelson’s “Me and Paul”.

Not that anybody here’s complaining, since Carll’s brash and sardonic persona is impossible to resist on his fifth full-length. There’s a wryness to his songwriting that’s probably more suited to barroom existentialists than his labelmate Ryan Bingham’s more depressed, poetic, modernized take on Texas-to-California cowboy music. On the hilarious and low-down duet with Cary Ann Hearst, “Another Like You” (“You were hittin’ on a stripper ’cause you couldn’t afford to tip her”¦”), Carll comes closer in spirit to another Lost Highway buddy, Corb Lund. Who happens to show up on “Bottle in My Hand”, a song that points to the barbed and underappreciated jester Roger Miller as one of Carll’s big influences.

The title track is killer. “KMAG YOYO” is military slang for “Kiss my ass, guys, you’re on your own,” and this is probably the first major-label-affiliated song to discuss the politics of Afghan poppies or the U.S. military’s tendency to stuff soldiers full of lobotomizing psychedelics in secret labs. You read that right. It’ll remind you of a brief time when country wasn’t made by flag-waving morons who look like they buy their clothes at Disneyland.