John Hiatt: Beneath This Gruff Exterior

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Hats off to Hiatt of the gruff exterior, one of the most unpredictable album artists of the past decade. Just when you thought he'd settled in for a stately retirement as a jobbing songwriter who never matched the heights you long expected (the back porch feel of Crossing Muddy Waters three years ago) he bounced back with a rocking-out album (The Tiki Bar is Open) and you knew the man was still on fire.

This gutsy, blues-rock outing opens in fine style ("I do my best thinkin' sittin' on my arse," he tells his goin' out girlfriend) and is rightly co-credited to his band (which includes guitarist Sonny Landreth) because they kick hard behind his cynical, funny lyrics. It sounds live - Hiatt right in your ear on the chugging Naggin' Dark, Landreth spirals across the tracks or digs in deep and earthy, there's ragged biscuit-tin drumming - and Hiatt has come up with some of his most consistent writing in years. They become an r'n'b bar band for Almost Fed Up With the Blues; deliver urban cowboy rock on Circle Back which name checks Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood's character in Rawhide, a pretty obscure reference) but is a reflection on his life; and go fatback rockabilly on Fly Back Home

The pace isn't entirely frantic, the Paul Westerberg-like ballad My Baby Blue might have benefited from an even more stately pace and less guitar colour. Tracks like the soulful Window on the World (which demands a cover by Nick Lowe) and the loving, acoustic rural rumination of My Dog and Me ("She marked our trail up the backbone ridge, how many times can one dog pee?") tell you that beneath that gruff exterior there may be gruff interior, but it has a loving heart.

Label: Sanctuary/Elite