Any act foolhardy enough to name an album Bullet-proof is cruising for a critical bruising. And having never been fully on board the Reckless Kelly bandwagon — I remember the parts of 2005’s Wicked Twisted Road that I loathed more than the parts I liked — I approached the Austin band’s latest ready to shoot it full of holes. But damn if the Reckless gang didn’t come prepared this time, armed to the teeth with smart, catchy roots-rock anthems that back up the album’s boastful title and really do deserve to find an audience well outside of Texas and the Braun brothers’ native Idaho. Bulletproof’s muscular production keeps the action going even through the lesser songs, which, at their worst, are more ultra-confident filler than duds. Not that there’s much room for filler here, stacked as the album is with keepers like “Ragged as the Road,” “Love in Her Eyes” and the not-at-all-what-you’d-expect title track all hitting the mark with a confident flair that begs for instant replay. The best of the bunch, though, is the centerpiece, “American Blood,” in which Reckless Kelly swagger into the crowded anti-war fray brandishing not just another embittered, preaching-to-the-choir protest rant in the Steve Earle/James McMurtry vein, but arguably the most rousing battle hymn for a disillusioned republic this side of “Born in the U.S.A.”
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