Still's B-3 and electric piano, guest Ann Marie Simpson's layered violins, and Blackjack Billy on backing vocals add spacy textures to solid grooves. 'Woman in the Moon' joins Southern psych with country rock. The title track is a screaming stomp with blazing Southern guitar rock threaded with hot bluegrass flatpicking in late-'70s hard-jamming fashion. On 'Let Me Help You (Find the Door),' Starr's grainy, soulful voice moves heaven and earth, carried by twin guitars crashing into the rhythm section's wall. It feels like a young Dave Edmunds backed by the Outlaws. While the first single, 'Rock & Roll Again,' is down in the vein of their earlier work, it's a bridge to the present: Starr's voice struts and guitars boil. Instead, Holding All the Roses showcases the band's tightness and their considerable development as rock & roll songwriters. While it might startle longtime fans, there are no sprawling jams on this set - all 12 tunes are under five minutes. It was recorded in less than two weeks, during a brief touring respite, with producer - and Georgia native - Brendan O'Brien (AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam).

Holding All the Roses is their Rounder debut, the follow-up to 2012's killer The Whippoorwill. Since 2000, singer/guitarist Charlie Starr, guitarist Paul Jackson, keyboard player Brandon Still, and brothers Brit and Richard Turner on drums and bass, respectively, have played in excess of 250 dates a year in funky honky tonks, rock clubs, and on festival stages on both sides of the Atlantic, learning how to write songs in the process. Georgia rock quintet Blackberry Smoke could write the book on how to 'slow build' a career. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.

Blackberry smoke holding all the roses