Exit 0 - Steve Earle & the Dukes

Steve Earle's second "proper" album, Exit 0, arriving one year after Guitar Town, his wildly successful 1986 debut, elaborates - to mostly stunning effect - upon that album's merging of contemporary Country music and blue-collar, Springsteen-esque Rock N Roll. Earle knew that Guitar Town was probably has last chance at making it as a performer in his own right, having been writing and demoing songs for other artists in and around Nashville for over a decade hitherto. That album sounded driven, determined, yet shot through with a palpable sense of frustration and desperation. Exit 0 sounds no less driven or determined, but the anxieties regarding the ...