The second Gov’t Mule studio album in three years, Peace…Like A River is a companion to 2021’s Heavy Load Blues. Both albums were recorded at the same time, but in different studios, with each song being slotted to the album that fit the overall sonic theme better.
Peace is clearly the more ambitious and sprawling of the two; the 12 songs add up to about 76 minutes (a double album, for you vinyl fans), which puts the average song length around six minutes. Rather than punchy blues-rock or concise outings, the songs here twist and wind through different musical motifs, giving each song various sections that somehow tie together in the end. It’s too much to digest in one sitting, but taken individually, each song is a Southern-fried adventure of its own. Don’t like the current passage? Wait a minute and it will change; different drum beat, keyboard solo, melodic detour. There hasn’t been an album like this in some time.
To be sure, that’s part of the intent; this band is indebted to classic rock, and listeners will easily hear elements of the Allman Brothers, Skynyrd, The Band, Neil Young, The Doors and Pink Floyd mixed into this stew. But Gov’t Mule has long been its own entity, and Peace shows no signs of slowing down or resting on its laurels. If you want the usual, Heavy Load has you covered. If you want to take a trip, see something new, without knowing where you’ll end up, Peace is the platter for you.
Special guest stars pop up here: Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Billy Bob Thornton, Ivan Neville, Celisse), and everyone brings their A game. It’s hard to pick a standout song because they’re all solid, but “Dreaming Out Loud” is an easy highlight, bringing funk, soul and horns to the jazz-rock jambalaya. “Made My Peace” is suitably epic, a nine-minute journey that sucks in the listener. Not surprisingly, the guitar workouts on “Shake Our Way Out” between Gibbons and Warren Haynes are greasy and compelling.
Really no duff tracks appear, though “The River Only Flows One Way” goes for a swampy drone that is a bit much after seven minutes, despite the presence of horns to liven it up. But it’s a noble experiment nonetheless, and anyway, once the keyboards and general Allman-ness of “After The Storm” kick in, you won’t care anyway; special credit to Danny Louis on keyboards throughout, but here especially. The track closes with the Young-esque “Gone Too Long,” a slowly confident track that runs just a bit long, but features Haynes’ guitar in fine form.
I guess if there’s any knock on this disc, it’s just a little too much of a good thing; a bit of tightening on the sprawling tracks and losing a couple of the weaker pieces would make this a bona fide classic. But it’s still a very good album, one that may come from a blues-rock-Southern band, but reaches far beyond those genre trappings in its ambition and scope. It may take a few listens to really absorb, but Peace…Like A River is worth the effort.