Tommy Brandt's NUFF SAID Quintessential Country

Raise your hand if you've turned on your favorite country station lately and got a dance mix or a rap song. Yeah, I've been there too. That's why I was so pleased to have come across a new artist on RFD's Cowboy Church, Tommy Brandt, (whom we've interviewed) performing his latest number, "Broken." Delivering the perfect mix of country and western with southern gospel, Brandt's music is a refreshing call to what country used to be.

Brandt's music does more than recall the sounds of yesterday; it openly longs for the values of yesterday, with many songs packed with nostalgia and family memories. For instance, in "If I Had It My Way," Andy Griffith would've stayed in black-and-white and his father would still be alive.

Many of the songs feel intensely personal at their core. "Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" is a tribute to lasting marriage. "My Father's Son" is full of family memories that will fog up your glasses with emotion; and "One More Memory" is nothing less than a love letter to the singer's wife and children.

There's also a strong commitment to patriotic ideals in NUFF SAID. "Blood Sweat & Tears" is a glass raised to all our veterans and active military, and the titular "Nuff Said" is a guide to real men of history, like our soldiers -- and Jesus. In fact, the album contains a good mix of southern gospel on it. "You Believed" is a gospel tune about a life changing power, and "Meanwhile Back at the Cross," the longest song of the set, is a ballad of hope spanning the last 2000 years.

This may seem like a lot of heavy themes, but Brandt lightens it up with songs like "The Perfect Woman" (who has her own bass boat and box seats to NASCAR), and "Country Boy," which is so deeply southern it has Spanish moss hanging off it.

Tommy Brandt's NUFF SAID contains the type of lyrical wordcraft and musical delivery that will find an immediate appeal to fans of Toby Keith and Trace Adkins. It's country the way country used to be -- guitars, singing, and almost nothing in the way of post-production special effects or attempts at any kind of genre crossover. The only Critical Blast I can level at the disc is in the production: many of the songs seem to end abruptly, as though the recording stopped a half-second before the last note was allowed to fade. However, I also have to say that I only noticed this playing the disc in my computer, and could not identify it happening in my car, so it very well could have been a software issue on my end.