The Cadillac Three
worked themselves so hard in 2020 that they decided to take an extended break, a decision aided in part by the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic. Returning to action with
The Years Go Fast
, a title that acknowledges the speed of life,
the Cadillac Three
don't quite renounce the disco dabblings of
Tabasco & Sweet Tea
as much as throw them into a blender with the hard rock that initially made their name. A song like "The Worst" can come across at first like glitter-ball hedonism, but by the chorus, it slams right into a dive bar -- a move
return to often on
, punctuating their hybrids with raucous ravers and the occasional ballad. Everything, even the slow songs, feels extraordinarily loud and steely, a gilded production that makes it seem like
are steeling themselves against the inevitable changes coming around the corner. The fact that the album feels pushed to 11 is alternately bracing and exhausting, yet parse out the individual moments -- or listen to it as a collection of self-constructed EPs -- and
seems like further evidence that
are one of the more adventurous bands in the Nashville mainstream in the early 2020s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine