Duff McKagan, Guns N Roses second-best singer (or is it third-best? wheres Izzy?), gets woke on his mellow new solo album. Amid twanging steel guitars, gospel backup singers and fiddle filigrees, he variously addresses Americas opioid epidemic, school shootings, sexual assault, homelessness and his own transgressions, but it never feels too corny or cloying since theres always sincerity in his voice. Its music of conscience, heavy songs with a light touch.
His secret weapon here is producer Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon), who helped him assemble a murderers row of studio musicians. Theres authenticity in the country-leaning arrangements and the mood always matches McKagans message. When he sings a little tenderness is what we need on the title track, theres a low church organ hum buttressing his hope. When he asks, Do we have to watch another mother cry? on Parkland a song that also namechecks the Columbine, Charleston, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech shootings his backing band plays swelling slide guitar as that same organ sizzles in the background, giving way to stomping and chains clanging for the chorus, Oh, shit, have you heard about Parkland? Yeah, it happened once again. Its both raw and sobering.
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The one solution McKagan offers for all the worlds ills is that people communicate better. On slow-drawling Its Not Too Late, he pleads, Take a long walk and meet your fellow man as steel guitar fades in and out around his nasal whine. Its a far cry from the scabrous (albeit tongue-in-cheek) tunes like Its So Easy and Used to Love Her that he once co-wrote with GNR; in fact, Tenderness is very much an exact 180 from the bands One in a Million, the homophobic, racist, xenophobic screed they recently removed from the track list on their Appetite for Destruction anniversary box set. This is his absolution.
Although some of the songs are a bit heavy-handed Parkland offers no solutions even though the answer is obvious, and Last September, about domestic abuse, sort of lets the assailant off the hook by saying his mama didnt raise a man this is an album full of beauty and heart. Its not all bleak, the catchy rocker Chip Away and Jennings duet Breaking Rocks both revel in the rough journey to redemption, and it ends with Dont Look Behind You, which promises the light is coming through. Tenderness is a grand gesture that works. Woke looks good on Duff.