Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
Kansas City’s Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys play it straight and great.
On Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys’ new Empty House, the hope of “The Good Ain’t Gone” is counterpoised to the despair of “Every Night I Leave You in My Mind,” the cruelty of “It Won’t Be Long (And I’ll Be Hating You)” to the sensitivity of “I Just Lost My Mind.” The music speaks volumes; with an artist of Hobart’s caliber, complexity binds a seemingly simple package.
Rex Hobart works in a direct, classic, honky-tonk manner. As plain as an Alan Jackson, but as rich and ominous as the Johnny Paycheck he covers in “Hating You,” Hobart also brings to mind the frankness of George Jones, the brutal honesty of Merle Haggard, and even the wobbly logic of Kris Kristofferson. He displays depth and skill in telling mournful tales of loves lost, chances missed, and melancholy’s triumphance.
Chicago’s Bloodshot must feel proud to house his estimable talents. More to come, for Empty House marks a triumph for Hobart, his band, and country music as a whole.
Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys Empty House 9.3/10.
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Posted on Sun, Apr. 10, 2005
Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys Empty House
(Bloodshot ***1/2)
The king of broken hearts? Rex Hobart seems to be making a bid for the title with his new album with the aptly named Misery Boys.
The hurt of Empty House is played out in classic honky-tonk form, with Hobart and his accompanists adding their own shades of blue in carefully modulated fashion that never gets over-the-top maudlin. "The phone never rings / I know that it's you," Hobart sings matter-of-factly in the desolate "Empty House Dawn and Twilight." Along with the smart originals is one fitting Johnny Paycheck song: "It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You)."
- Nick Cristiano
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