Rebuild the Wall

Imagine Pink Floyd's The Wall reconstructed from bales of hay. The idea of this concept album translated into a hillbilly hoedown of banjos and fiddles may sound interesting, but the results can wear thin pretty quickly. Part of the problem is that Canada's Luther Wright & the Wrongs don't sound like they have a deep attachment to either classic rock or traditional bluegrass. Instead, this plays like a joke--a Hee Haw skit carried to extremes. While the bittersweet balladry of "The Thin Ice" and the call-and-response of "Mother" adapt surprisingly well to the sound of old-time country, the banjo-driven "Another Brick in the Wall" and the jaunty drive of "Comfortably Numb" put the arrangements at odds with the mood of the material. Consider this release to be curious fallout from the chart-topping success of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which sold most of its millions of CDs to those raised on rock rather than mountain music. --Don McLeese