Thieves & Liars debut, last year’s When Dreams Become Reality, was a bold, expansive album. If it had a noticeable fault, it was that it didn’t always turn its breadth into a cohesive whole. American Rock n Roll doesn’t suffer that same ill though. It’s a much more straight forward, hard rock album. While nothing here is as ambitious as their debut, this album is much more even, relying more on raw passion and conviction than innovation. From the blistering rock n roll of "Walking by My Side" to the aggressive blues of "Killed a Man," Thieves & Liars successfully rein in innovation in favor of flat out rocking. While "Till the Walls Fall Down" and "Promised Land" are a little thin and lose, the richness of 70s hard rock in favor of the synthetic riffs of the following decade, the album as a whole has far too much soul to be written off for a couple near misses. Overall, these songs of struggle and salvation, a hard rock gospel if you will, prove that rock n roll is anything but the devil’s music.
