The Invisible Man

1	Hank Williams' Ghost 4:35
2	There's a Stone Around My Belly 3:16
3	Shattered Cross 4:05
4	I'm Nobody 4:45
5	And the River Is Me 6:19
6	Let's Call It a Life 3:27
7	The Dreamer 4:35
8	Do It or Die Trying 4:19
9	The Invisible Man 3:43
10	Goodle, U.S.A. 3:59
11	Looking Glass 4:01
12	In My Final Hour 3:13

Barnes & Noble

On his sixth and most ambitious solo album, Darrell Scott takes a long, hard look at mortality and the general strain of contemporary life. A card-carrying member of Steve Earle's Dukes, a first-call Nashville studio hand, and a songwriter of growing repute, Scott makes The Invisible Man a signal event in his career by mating weighty subject matter to powerful musical support, as supplied by Richard Bennett, Dan Dugmore, John Cowan, Sam Bush, and other estimable sidekicks. The death of his friend Stuart Adamson, founder of the Scottish rock band Big Country, triggered the stirring "Shattered Cross," in which a rush of acoustic and percussive instruments evokes a lust for life, its urgency keyed by Scott's aggrieved, impassioned vocal. True to Scott's pedigree, many of the songs blur the line between country and rock -- the cynical "I'm Nobody" melds a country feel to an arrangement punctuated by twanging guitar fills, pounding percussion, and a soaring, Skynyrd-like lead electric line. One of the album's most compelling moments, the fatalistic existential anthem "Let's Call It a Life," features a gritty Scott vocal and exuberant, gospel-rooted backing voices shouting entreaties to Scott's lead. Forcefully strummed acoustic guitars quickly give way to ringing electric guitars and foreboding, minor-key thunder in "In My Final Hour," the album's closing number, in which Scott muses on his own departure from this mortal coil, rejecting quaint concepts such as forgiveness. His subsequent tears of joy suggest the duality rife at every turn in this stirring philosophical inquiry, which never fails to be musical in an unforgettable way. David McGee

All Music Guide

Mortality hangs heavy in Darrell Scott's mind on The Invisible Man, an album that repeats again and again, "live today 'cause tomorrow never knows." For fans, this serious streak will be familiar from songs like "With a Memory Like Mine" from 2000's Real Time with Tim O'Brien. But even the titles here -- "Let's Call It a Life," "Do It or Die Trying," and "In My Final Hour" -- stress a deepening of Scott's mediation. He surrounds these thoughts with heavy acoustic-electric arrangements that still take time out for gentle acoustic songs like the piano-based "Looking Glass." Acoustic guitar and Dobro kick off "Hank Williams' Ghost," hammering a riff that closely resembles "Sweet Home Alabama." After 30 seconds, an electric guitar, thumping bass, and steady backbeat join behind Scott's soulful, gritty country vocals. The midtempo pacing makes it a good lead song, though the melody line -- and this is true on the remainder of the album -- isn't immediately memorable. Lyrically, when not considering mortality, Scott worries over world peace, the have-nots, and other heavy issues, creating top-heavy songs like "I'm Nobody" that feel more like sermons. While Scott remains a thoughtful writer, soulful singer, and a fine musician on The Invisible Man, his work here lacks the richness of earlier, less self-conscious efforts like 1999's Family Tree. Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.