Kmag Yoyo (& Other American Stories)

Carll is every bit as expressive a singer as he is a writer, drawling his trenchant observations with deceptive ease.

Carll is locked in a not-so-fierce battle with Ryan Bingham for the title of new king of alt-country. Here he splits the difference between Bingham's tender musings and a more raucous brand of humor.

A little too decisively to instill much hope for his love life, the rowdy songs are deeper than the thoughtful ones.

The spontaneity isn't always the best showcase for Carll, who has a tendency to lean too often on either his mid-'60s Bob Dylan cadence or his two-stepping Hank Jr. voice.

Another damn good album from the Texan, as convincing on songs of country heartache as on roadhouse swagger. [Aug. 2011, p. 97]

In a crowd of loudish country and R&B guitars he tells brief stories of everyday lives with a correspondingly everyday voice, but with a kind of unslung abandonment that goes rather well with the guitars. It's very good.

While he's got enough pure country in him to for convincing Merle Haggard-style balladry, he's best on rabble-rousers like the rightly pissed populism of "Stomp And Holler" and the de facto title song, a doomed soldier's outrageous, funny surreal travelogue grafted onto a grungy mutation of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." [Mar 2011, p.85]

Hayes Carll may be playing American schlub on the LP cover, but he's razor-sharp and ready.

What makes Carll worthy of such an esteemed class is his storytelling and witty commentary. [Feb. 2011, p. 72]

What makes Mr. Carll something other than a torchbearer is the frank timeliness of his lyrics, which draw few distinctions between the personal and the political.

These are the album's best songs, but the rest are good, too, and the whole is a worthy addition to the ever-growing catalog of sly Texas country-rock.