Album Review: Hayes & the Heathens

Hayes Carll and the Band of Heathens capture Southern-fried synergy

Reviewed by Doug Freeman, Fri., Jan. 3, 2025

Hayes Carll (center) with the Band of Heathens (photo by Casen Hutton)

During the pandemic, the Band of Heathens kept their creative connection by hosting the freewheeling weekly “Good Time Supper Club” livestream. The show quickly evolved into a showcase of guest artists who would Zoom in for a virtual jam session.

Some of those recordings made the cut onto the Heathens’ 2022 collaborative covers LP, Remote Transmissions, Vol. 1, which wrangled guests like Margo Price, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Robert Ellis. The album also featured a delicious take on Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me” with Hayes Carll, leaning full throttle into the woozy, ramshackle love ode with a natural chemistry between Hayes and the Heathens.

That relationship deepened when the quintet and Carll met up in person to jam out in Luckenbach in 2023, and soon they were in the studio exploring what kind of magic they could cook up together. The resulting Hayes & the Heathens comes off as a natural pairing, with each side thriving off the creative energy of the other.

There’s a looseness and playfulness to the entire affair that sets up at the outset of the LP with the rollicking “Nobody Dies From Weed.” It’s precisely the kind of tongue-in-cheek verse exchange that would result from a late-night picking party, with tumbling lines that try to up the absurdity and a cathartic chorus set up against a funky, loping bassline.

As the album opener and debut single, the song would almost suggest we don’t take the entire endeavor too seriously, but the combined songwriting heft between Carll and Heathen frontmen Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi ensures that even the most casual lines pack punches. Likewise, BoH keyboardist Trevor Nealon and rhythm section players Nick Jay and Clint Simmons remain impeccably tight through all of the eight tracks’ stylistic turns.

The following “Any Other Way” lays down the best mixture of the group, unloading classic Carll irreverence (“I spend most my time just laughing at a joke nobody gets/ And I wouldn’t have it any other way”) against the band at their most energetic. Jabbing guitar licks and barreling keyboard breakdowns fuel the Southern-fried stomp, all honed with the Heathens’ characteristic harmonies.

Through unleashed jams and sentimental ballads, Hayes & the Heathens reminds the artists to take a beat and appreciate the joy around them.

The fervently frolicking openers don’t define the full album, though. Both the Band of Heathens and Carll are experts in balancing the poignant and profane, and the wistful “See How They Run” cuts against the downside of living the high life as good-time friends fall away. Carll’s “Nothin’ to Do With Your Love” – as in, “I don’t want” – delivers the most surprising cut. Gritty blues burn through a litany of sexual metaphors as the singer tries to convince himself he’s over his ex.

If the album’s front half offers a showcase of the outfit at its most collaborative, the B-side resets to deliver two exceptional songs written separately. Quist and Jurdi’s “Water From the Holy Grail” provides the most polished tune of the set, as the vocalists beg over an easy rolling melody, “keep running, don’t ever look back.” Next up, “Adeline” spins Carll in his peak poetic, Dylan-esque mode, each solo verse unfolding rhyming revelations into a pleading ensemble.

Both songs also best capture the threading theme of the album: a call to appreciate the moment while we have it, to let go of the past and not worry too much about the future. Through unleashed jams and sentimental ballads, Hayes & the Heathens reminds the artists to take a beat and appreciate the joy around them. By the end of the album’s two closing tracks, a funked up cover of the Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” and end-of-the-night anthem “You Can’t Stay Here,” their presence still lingers.