One Road Man

On One Man Road, the Western swing and cowboy music that once made Chris LeDoux a dusty rodeo-culture star has been traded in for the clean guitar solos, thundering drums, and (melo)dramatic arrangements of the most tired arena rock. “Old Paint,” though a ballad about a trusted horse, sounds like Bruce Hornsby. “The Fever” rocks like late-period Bob Seger, and “Bang a Drum” is a duet with Jon Bon Jovi himself. In fact, there’s hardly a performance here that would identify itself as country if you didn’t already know the singer was a former bronco buster. And when these generic settings are combined with LeDoux’s new macho sentimentality, you can’t help but long for that old LeDoux, the one who still had some dust on his boots. –David Cantwell