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Let’s hear it for the rock & roll true believers, the ones who pick up that guitar and step up to that microphone with the confidence that rock & roll will save your soul. Despite his 70s folky background, Willie Nile has been singing that song for over three decades now, and if The Innocent Ones doesn’t alter the verses much, it also stays true to its creator’s honest vision. Backed by drummer/co-writer Frankie Lee and guitarist/bassist Steuart Smith, Nile easily works the sweet spot between Bruce Springsteen‘s urban street operas and Tom Petty‘s post* Byrds* heartland rock – simple song structures, major chords and passion that burns but doesn’t flare. Nile strives less for profundity than universality, and while he’s capable of witty bon mots like “For a country made of cheese there’s an awful lot of ham on the wall” (from “Topless Amateur”), he can also deliver a chorus like “Wherever you are tonight/For every heart that’s broken in two/I’m speaking your name, I’m lighting your flame/I’m singing a song for you” with such conviction that the clichés don’t matter. Whether he’s singing a gentle love song like “Sideways Beautiful” or a populist anthem like “Singin’ Bell,” Nile is never more than sincere and never less than melodic. Rousing but never overblown, The Innocent Ones is mainstream rock & roll done right.
