War & Peace
The title comes courtesy of Leo Tolstoy. The vocals are Lone Star Bob Dylan, made grittier by an East Texas wind. And the style is Woody Guthrie by way of Robert "Masters of War" Zimmerman. That said, ex-Flatlander Hancock brings unassailable conviction to this collection of original protest songs, which draw on Biblical references, activist literature, and Phil Ochs-like humanity to drive a stake through the heart of Hancock's fellow Texan in the White House. "They never found a single weapon of mass destruction," he needles in "The Devil in Us All," "but they all smell oil/got to get it into production." Hancock plays nine instruments here, and calls on old bandmates Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore for his chorus of witnesses. Still, at times, as on "Old Man, Old Man," a monologue to his maker, Hancock-as-producer needs a bit of help--his keyboards are too cheesy to rattle God's stained-glass windows, and much of this has a DIY, on-the-cheap tone. Can you really plug an electric guitar into your truck's cigarette lighter?--Alanna Nash