Ride Through the Country (Revisited)

Five years after its initial release, Colt Ford revised his 2008 debut, Ride Through the County, adding a couple new tracks and a couple of remixes to the original album. Despite these tweaks, Ride Through the Country remains what it was in its first incarnation: a deeply silly, often fun, rollicking ride through the mainstreet of red-state middle America. Ford isn't a deft rapper, but he doesn't need to be. He's avuncular and jovial, a cheerleader for a mid-week party who is always careful not to push things too far. The tweaks on Ride Through the Country don't modernize the album but rather freshen it slightly; at its core, it's still a redneck party, one where the rap is essentially incidental, but this is lively sports bar rock that keeps the party pumping long after it should've ended.