Lonesome Onry and Mean: No Wrong Answers on Ray Wylie Hubbard's New Album

​Lonesome Onry and Mean's second early pick for our 2010 best-of list is Ray Wylie Hubbard's A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment, (Hint) There Is No C, set to drop this coming Tuesday.

Ever since he started working with producer/guitarist Gurf Morlix four records ago, Hubbard has gotten further and further from this Cosmic Cowboy/"Redneck Mother" style (he wrote that) and traveled deeper and deeper into raw country-blues that stings just like the wasps he sings about. Enlightenment is an entire back-to-basics movement rolled into 12 tracks that uncoil like a rattlesnake disturbed in its sleep.

Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Down Home Country Blues"

The album, which features a series of prominent guitarists - David Abeyta, Seth James, Morlix, and Hubbard''s son Lucas - is as nasty in tone and surly in delivery as any on the scene right now. There's a primitive gospel influence on many tracks that will penetrate the hardest hearts.

Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Every Day Is the Day of the Dead"

If someone asked Lonesome, Onry and Mean for the best current example of Texas Music, this would be it no matter what Best in Texas, Ed Shane, and Katie "Exclamation Point Queen" Key say or print.

Look for our feature on Hubbard and his new album in the January 21 print issue of the Press. Hubbard plays two shows at McGonigel's Mucky Duck Saturday, January 23.