Get Off On The Pain CD

Get Off on the Pain, an eighth album that shows no signs of musical fatigue and, moreover, promises an undeniable future. Songs like the atmospheric “We Fly by Night,” the indestructible title track, and the dramatically cascading, deliberate “I Think I Had Enough” consolidate the strengths of previous Gary Allan music — the Orbisonesque elegance of “Smoke Rings in the Dark” (1999), the brute power of “Man to Man” (2001), the smarts of “Watching Airplanes” (2007). The album strikes out in different directions, too. This is country music from a guy who effortlessly can sing the wry, despondent “Kiss Me When I’m Down,” which imports elements of rock chamber-pop, into the same collection song cycle that contains the rollicking “That Ain’t Gonna Fly,” whose choruses taps the richest harmonic fundamentals of gospel music turning into pop.

A couple albums back, Allan did a triumphant version of Jessie Winchester’s “A Showman’s Life”; packing lifetimes of drama and consequence into his performance, he uncovered and demonstrated what it feels like to live your life on the road, day in and day out, to play music. “You beat yourself up pretty bad doing it,” Allan says. “There are lots of sacrifices, mostly personal, but it’s a rush.” Get Off on the Pain, is like a ten-song demonstration of Allan’s version of Winchester’s song. The album sums up and expands Allan’s fifteen years of Nashville music-making as it lately has arrived out of the frenetic pace of his jam-packed touring schedule.