Free of band constraints, Butler is more intimate and playful than Canyon’s country grandeur might allow. Whereas the latter’s Empty Rooms (2002) married Pink Floyd spaciousness to Mojave 3’s wounded wanderlust, Killer On The Road reinvents BB as a hard-travelled tourbadour, a carpetbag of blues in tow. Gripping it is, too, from the unadorned “Good Intentions” to the muted country revivalism of “Next Time” and grisly tough-luck tale “Rio Grande Rail”. Confirmation, if it were needed, of a major talent.
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