Billy Gibbons, Matt Sorum, and Austin Hanks headed to the desert to record an album and what they came back with is righteous. Hardware is Billy’s third studio album and it’s everything I hoped and dreamed it to be. It's fun, it’s cool, and most importantly, it’s a hard rock album that’s gonna take you on a magical journey through the desert.
Immediately, this album is off to a hot and heavy start with “My Lucky Card”. The song begins with a great riff, then Billy comes in with his signature raspy voice stronger than ever before. The music video perfectly illustrates the concept of the song. It starts out in black and white while Billy is the only one in color. He’s driving a massive truck in the desert, then goes into this little honky tonk type restaurant and goes straight to the bar to get a beer from the bartender. The two of them share a drink and the bartender is now in color along with Billy. Matt and Austin are playing on a small stage and Billy joins them for an epic guitar solo, but he is playing guitar with his beer. If that doesn’t scream “Billy Gibbons”, I don’t know what does.
Next we got “She’s on Fire”. This one has a really fun, beachy, California surfer sound that makes you wanna groove along to it. Then we completely shift gears with “More-More-More”, which has more of a hard rock, grungy sound along with an epic guitar solo. To shift gears even more, we go into an older, swing styled song, “Shuffle, Step & Slide”. Already, we are hearing a wide range of different sounds but somehow they all fit together so perfectly. Not to mention “Vegabond”, a very beautiful and soulful ballad that follows.
“West Coast Junkie” is one of the singles from the album. The song definitely has a mysterious sound to it along with a really fun groove that tells a story. This is another song that features a music video. Like before, they’re in black and white and they are driving through the desert but in the very beginning, the three guys are on stage and Billy says his line, “People say to me, have mercy”. As he’s saying that, you hear these faint angelic sounds in the background and Matt and Austin are looking at Billy with their hands in prayer. For me, this moment symbolized Billy Gibbons as God and I loved it. There’s a lot of great little moments like that in the video. There’s one point where the three of them are watching three go-go dancers dance on these giant rocks and the camera first shows them watching, and then shows them trying to dance like the girls. It was a cute moment and it made me laugh.
The gem on this album is the very long awaited collaboration with Larkin Poe. “Stackin’ Bones” is such a cool tune with a little bit of that beachy, surf’s up vibe. Of course there’s Billy’s rough and raspy voice but then hear these smoothe, and beautiful background vocals from Larkin Poe. The contrast of their voices really takes the song to the next level and totally makes it stand out from every other song on the album.
The album ends in a really interesting way with “Desert High”. The majority of the song is Billy telling a story and then ends with this really raw instrumental. Billy has such an interesting voice for story telling. It’s deep, it’s raspy, it’s mysterious, and I want to listen to it all day long. When Billy explained this song he said, "The desert is a truly mysterious place and we were privileged to have spent all that time there absorbing the heat, the vibe and cranking it out." Between Billy’s storytelling, the desert visuals from the music video, and the rattle from the rattlesnake throughout the song, you start to get that mystery that Billy is talking about.
I love the theme and the concept behind the album. I think it's very original yet very on brand for Billy Gibbons. Not to mention the whole idea of driving in the middle of a desert is honestly so badass. There is a lot of heat in this album and you might not understand what that means until you listen to it. Some of my favorite songs I didn’t mention are “Spanish Fly” and “I Was a Highway” but overall every song is a masterpiece. Something else I love about this album is that you can tell from listening to it and watching all the videos that they put out that they had so much fun making this album and that honestly makes it even more enjoyable to listen to. Overall, well done and have mercy!
Stream Hardware here.