Review: Cory Marks, Who I Am

If you had to sum up Cory Marks’ hell-raising and flat-out electrifying debut in an elevator pitch, it would go something like this: “Dude loves hard rock AND country, so he smashes both together with abandon.” As if to prove his point, our man brazenly pairs Travis Tritt with Mötley Crüe’s Mick Mars on “Outlaws & Outsiders,” a scorching, made-to-measure radio hit also featuring Ivan Moody of Five Finger Death Punch which is emblematic of an album deeply invested in country themes (nights in jail, booze absolutely everywhere, rednecks and trucks) but propelled by dweedly-dweedly electric guitar that wouldn’t sound out of place on a . . . well, on a Mötley Crüe record. 

What is doubtless a nightmare from a marketing point of view — it’s almost a truism that country people demand country stars be all in, and don’t even get us started on the ornate and further subdividing instrumental swells surging through “Out In the Rain” — nevertheless gives fans on both sides of the twang/fist-pump gap something tasty to chew on. 

And anyway, an argument can be made that Who I Am is less a collection of songs than a feral pack of anthems lying in wait for a Saturday night. Marks admits as much on the propulsive title track, the chugging, good-timey “Good To Be Us” and the equally brash “Blame It on the Double” which manages to make pedal steel and electric guitar seem like the most obvious bedfellows since salt and pepper. Or, in Marks’ case, whiskey and wine which, yes, also doubles as a song title (“My Whiskey, Your Wine”) as well as a raison d’être for the entire enterprise. Just try to not sing along . . . or daydream about the warm jolt accompanying that first glug of Wild Turkey.

Who I Am was released August 7, 2020 on Better Noise Music.

Outlaws & Outsiders by Cory Marks feat. Ivan Moody of Five Finger Death Punch, Travis Tritt, and Mick Mars of Mötley Crüe.