Holler Back (BNA, 2008)

There seems to be a strong theme to this Georgia quintet's third major label CD. Almost every song is about country living. Either about how great it is to rusticate or conversely how great it is to get of the backwoods. In the title track and first single, the misplaced mobile homes feel out of place in a hip-hop world and long to return to Hillbilly Heaven. Blacktop Road and Country Folks (Livin' Loud) are paeans to pastoral living. The singer of Things You Don't Grow Out Of had to leave his small town, but he never abandoned the values he learned there.

And there's nothing wrong with some thematic consistency especially when you harmonize as beautifully as the Trailers do. And to keep it from becoming too bucolic, they do mix it up a little. On How 'Bout You Don't, a man about to be dumped makes a simple but eloquent plea for another chance. Hey Baby and Summer of Love are both about being young and in love - young and in love by the river and around the old high school, so maybe they don't wander too far off topic after all.

Which is a good thing, since the only clunker on this set is a piece of c(ountry) rap: Gravy about a young man who saves the family farm by selling marijuana. There's a reason the Holler Back crowd is uncomfortable in a hip-hop world. With lyrics like "Well my Mama cried, my Grandma cried / Grandpa woulda cried but he done died" and "Hit them hips when you get 180 / Shake them grits let's make some gravy," we're all uncomfortable.