Jekyll + Hyde — Zac Brown Band

Rock/Pop: Jekyll + Hyde — Zac Brown Band
Label: Universal Music India
Rating: 3.5
As a popular live unit that routinely sells out stadiums, Zac Brown Band is often called a jam band. Jekyll + Hyde finds truly reconstructed. It’s a major effort to outstrip the band’s onstage eclecticism. Opener Beautiful Drug flirts with EDM and soon gives way to gospel-rock cuts.Mango Tree is a horn-driven, full-steam exercise in retro swing with Sara Bareilles. Heavy Is the Head enlists Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell’s human effects pedal for a country-grunge wonder. It brings the heaviness that The Grohl Sessions lacked. Junkyard is a hard rock song about domestic abuse, but unfortunately bogs down. A better version can be heard on the band’s 2010 live album, Pass the Jar. Lead single Homegrown and many other tracks here yield mixed results. Bittersweet is about mortality and loss, while Young And Wild makes for lively nostalgia, with sampling from Hall & Oates’ Rich Girl. Jekyll + Hyde’s cover of Dress Blues, Americana artist Jason Isbell's acid-etched portrait of a small-town military funeral, doesn’t blunt the anti-war protest at the song's core. At the end of the day, the album tells you that life in heartland America is tough but worthwhile, and the rest of the world is just an uncomplicated getaway. — .Fernandes@timesgroup.com