It should tell you a lot about how Gavin Adcock perceives himself that he starts his newest LP with the one-two punch of waking up in the drunk tank, only to showcase why letting him off the leash is so hazardous in the first place. Despite the former coming as an eye-rolling marketing tactic following his recent arrest, the football frat star is skilled at playing up the parts of his personality that ruffle the most feathers. On “Outside Dog,” he likens himself to a beast that can’t be tamed, one sniffing out the next best thing as soon as there’s no more ruckus left to cause on the living room carpet. Self-destruction, in many ways, is the modern era’s favorite spectacle.
And of course, the match that lights the fuse is a familiar one for Adcock on his third record. The Georgia native has spent the majority of his career hitting the marks the new-age outlaws have arguably strung out to their extremes. Themes of whiskey, women, and wanting what you can’t have are peppered throughout Own Worst Enemy, as Adock wrestles with similar demons. Like its leading man, the album comes long-winded, maybe an unintended analysis of the Adcock archetype, never really knowing how to end the party.
Where the first half of the record reckons with that morning-after madness, he slowly seeps back into his old ways, the further and further down the line we get. A bereft entrance paired with a bellicose exit is a more self-aware way to pace the journey than most of his haters would give him credit for. His credentials may be debatable, but his consciousness is on the same wavelength as a lot of the greats.
To add to the long list of pieces of himself this thrash-crazed performer is trying to figure out, maybe chief among them on Own Worst Enemy is how seriously to take himself. For an act whose viral contagion is bred on pelting beer cans at concert-goers and LARPing as the Bills Mafia on his own merch table, he spends a great deal of this record on the defensive. The change in attitude is refreshing, though bordering on costume-y when his soft-spoken, heavy-handed drawl starts inverting its R’s. It comes in waves on tracks like “Graveyard,” which almost call back to the light-touch rock acts like Lifehouse were mastering in the early 2000s.
Or on the record’s title track, a drop-down jam that feels like an intervention written from the third person. It’s almost as if even in the moments that should feel foreign, self-assurance is what’s carrying the former noseguard the distance. His most self-referential album to date is maybe messy because its lynchpin is finally full-throttle after years of manifesting the fast life. When we zig from this moment to zag back to picking up the pieces on “Next To Nothing” a few tracks later, it feels like it doesn’t know where to focus its attention when the window is this blurry. But honestly, it’s a mode that would be frustrating in less reckless hands.
Confidence, in some instances, can only carry the singer so far. A big point of contention and criticism has always fallen on Adcock’s vocal ability, and how much natural talent bears consequence on overall quality. Usually, a good voice can enhance more than a bad one can detract, but control is key. On “Ain’t Workin’ Anymore,” a push and pull between the bottle and the brain, that blind-eye mindset gets realized enough to get a wince out of the most passive of listeners. Or when the brute force bass comes toe-to-toe with a slow dance on “Turn Down The Lights,” the mesh between two foreign entities of brawn and boyish love is jarring. Falling flat in these instances is more like falling victim to the “see what sticks” method of record pacing, but it still fares pretty poorly for an act with such a pronounced performative atmosphere.
Still, there are moments where vulnerability can play to the strength that’s usually found in his brute force. When life gives the singer lemons on “Need To,” he seems to learn the value in the sour and use the seeds to plant more lessons for himself down the line. It’s a laid-back lake jam, filled to the brim with the realization that comes as the sun hits the water on its longest days. Or take “Sunset” for example, as he takes an Aldean-esque instrumental backing to put a little more angst in his desperation over a love that’s fading with the dusk. Moments of quiet contemplation, maybe even desperation in some cases, are an invigorating change of pace, even if they detour from the main road Adcock has been barrelling down his whole career.
The retired noseguard’s closest points of comparison are a rowdy bunch. “Actin’ Up Again” saw shades of an early Koe Wetzel or more localized Treaty Oak Revival, a southern ole boy take on the Gen-Z grunge revival that was seeing domination out west. His newest, thankfully, is just as loud, albeit with a little more curation and personal taste. Adcock is, for lack of a better phrase, somewhat of a traditionalist. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in the preservation or revival game. Currently on tour with Morgan Wallen, it’s clear that his biggest pulls are a long list of country music’s bad influences. It’s hard not to notice how grating and polarizing the perception of his music can be at times, and wonder if that’s not the defining point being made about him. It’s not quite tribute band level, but when you hit a track like “Unlucky Strikes,” in which he rattles off every ism of redneck life he could get out in eight bars, the point gets across rather bluntly.
If it sounds like he’s a bull in a china shop, that’s probably because it’s what he’s going for. Adcock is continuously poking and prodding at the quirks of country music as only someone who loves the genre can. As a caricature of the modern cowboy, it’s hard to say he’s trying to be anything other than a parody of the norm he’s morphed into. Maybe it’s okay to play to your strengths, even if you break a few eggs in the process.
