Rod Stewart
Another Country
(Capitol Records)

Rod Stewart’s Another Country (his 28^th studio release!) opens with the big, commercial, fiddle-led “Love Is,” a fine, fun tune covering banal lyric territory, but still something that will bring a smile to your face. “Walking in the Sunshine” again sees Rod using his big chanting female backing vocalists, though this one features a spectacular middle flamenco guitar section and Rod mining his lower, almost growly range. Along the way here in these 17 tracks we get Celtic mandolin/hand drum workouts like “We Can Win,” a little reggae on “Love and Be Loved” and lots of upbeat stuff, kind of sounding the same. But as has been evident in his entire long career, Rod Stewart can deliver in songwriting as well as singing. The acoustic guitar ballad “Way Back Home” is a beautiful story song about Rod’s childhood, but the ballad “Can We Stay Home Tonight?” is better with it’s Clapton “Wonderful Tonight”-like slow simplicity and single guitar line of a man just aching to get home to his lady. Rod’s voice sounds about as best as it ever has on the string-building song for his child, “Batman, Superman, Spiderman.” The loud drum “The Drinking Song” is a hoot, with just a bit of regret to Rod’s delivery of his younger looser times around loud slide guitar. The funk of horns pushing on “One Night With You” shows off Rod’s soul possibilities with his backing vocalists and the big commercial swing of “Great Day” sees that Celtic fiddle again. But the real killer here is “In A Broken Dream” with its loud, nasty guitar lead, bleeding organ and Rod wailing in an old-time blues rock style; it’s by far the best tune on the album for me. Another Country might not see Rod stretching out or offering anything classic, but its a solid release from the old rocker.