Troy Castellano’s latest single from the album, Beautiful Blur, hits listeners with “I Only Dance When I’m Drunk” in comedic fashion without skipping a beat or breaking a string. It features veterans musicians layering the strings and keeping it fat with first rate production and engineering by Castellano himself producing and Bobby Holland engineering. And said veteran musicians are made up of Castellano on guitars and vocals, Nathan Keeterie and Devin Malone on guitars, Tim Marks on bass, Luke Moseley on keyboards and Miles McPherson on drums. This is like an all-star line-up of seriously good players on board.
The first thing to note is the tempo isn’t stuck in the middle where so many country songs dwell, instead it’s a vibrant and rocking little song with a big sound, which is evident before it’s over the first time you hear it. Castellano owns every word and chord he plays and sings, and the musicians do the rest to accompany the vocals. But these aren’t heady vocals; it’s a short but sweet message to get out and confirm to those who’ve experienced the same off night but at least got to try and dance their way out of it with the liquid courage.
If you like country music you may have heard this attempted many times over, in the tear in the beer song sense, but this is a different time and space for a traditional situation, and Castellano makes a grand effort to have an absolute blast making “I Only Dance When I’m Drunk.” And underneath it all there’s a great song here, not to be dismissed just because of the song’s title and subject matter, because you also come away chuckling at the very least and you might even crack up a time or two over it.
“I Only Dance When I’m Drunk” finds Castellano at the height of his musical powers without trying to achieve that and just come out with a fun number worthy of placing in the show set list. This could go far if heavily marketed, because it combines the country pop and rock genres for an overall maximum result the artist took pride in, even if on the playful side of the coin. The difference is, the musicians are serious, so it comes out both serious and playful at the same time, which can’t be beaten whenever you want to hear it.
This is simply a fantastic excursion from the dance floor all the way to the bedroom floor, “I Only Dance When I’m Drunk” provides good vibes over bad decisions, keeping the humor in tact while playing seriously well-structured music. It’s something hard to come by in the current atmosphere of media madness and political topics ruling the airwaves for the time being, so it helps get dis-amplify the negative vibes making for excellent material. Let it soothe and soak up the nonsense for a few good minutes; you’ll be glad you discovered such a retreat from the static norms.
Rachel Townsend