A review on Steve Holy’s newest, Love Don’t Run is a few months overdue, but it took him about five years to follow up his last album, Brand New Girlfriend with this one, so I guess we have time. A compilation of good ol’ country songs, Love Don’t Run is a solid listen, but I don’t see any track that will launch the country crooner’s career into the stratosphere.
Now, “good country songs” is vague and subjective, so let me tell you what I mean: Love Don’t Run has a versatile mix of tracks with predictable country subject matters: lessons learned, heroes, and love (obviously). The songs are well written, some with similes and descriptives (Like I’m Famous, Wonders), some with funny plays on words (Hauled Off And Kissed Me), and some with romantic emotion (Until The Rain Stops, Help Me Make It Through The Night).
The single Love Don’t Run was a hit, making the top 20, but nothing that will last as a wedding song like Good Morning Beautiful (although an acoustic version of that song is included as a bonus track on this album) or a karaoke song like Brand New Girlfriend. To be clear, it’s a good album! Just don’t expect Holy to be in the hunt for a CMA Award.
Now, since I am a fan of the songwriting, the one criterion that could propel my respect of this album upward is if Holy wrote or co-wrote the songs himself. And (Please wait, while I check the album insert)… he wrote four of them. Ok, not bad. And to his credit, many of those songs were the ones that caught my ear.
For those wondering, he did not write either of his aforementioned charting singles from previous albums. However, on this album, names such as Rodney Adkins, Kris Kristofferson and (wait for it…) Kelly Roland from Destiny’s Child show up in the songwriting credits.
Wrapping this rambling up: I liked the album. It won’t find a permanent home in my CD player, but it’s already loaded on my iPod for when the Steve Holy mood hits me.
Love Don’t Run Track Listing:
1. If It Gets You Where You Wanna Go
2. Love Don’t Run
3. Hauled Off And Kissed Me
4. Until The Rain Stops
5. Heart Of A Hero
6. Everyday Should En Like This
7. Wonders
8. Let The Sun Shine In
9. Like I’m Famous
10. Help Me Make It Through The Night
