Album of the Week: Zac Brown Band

Jekyll + Hyde ? More like Sybil.

Like the woman of the '70s best seller purported to have 16 personalities, the Zac Brown Band's new album never stays the same for long. Hardly one of the 16 tracks on Jekyll + Hyde (**** out of four) resembles the next.

Are the members of the band purveyors of good-time, self-reliant mainstream country, à la their chart-topping hit Homegrown? Are they Southern rockers, capable of cranking out Led Zeppelin-worthy guitar riffs? That's what they do on Heavy is the Head with Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, a song currently climbing the Active Rock airplay charts.

Maybe burly frontman Brown is a blue-eyed soul man along the lines of Van Morrison. Singing with Sara Bareilles on the big-band swing tune Mango Tree, though, he sounds more like Ol' Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra. One moment, Brown and his band sound like '70s soft-rockers in the vein of James Taylor, at least until they start throwing in bluegrass instrumentation and Caribbean rhythms.

Unlike many albums, where such musical restlessness signifies a band's inability to create an identity or master any one style, Jekyll + Hyde is different. As Brown sings on Homegrown, "I got everything that I need and nothing that I don't."

And the Zac Brown Band's got a lot. The creativity on Jekyll + Hyde is astonishing, the musicianship equal to the challenge. That would amount to little, though, if the band didn't have the songs. Some were written with the likes of Eric Church, Keb' Mo' and Amos Lee, and the best feel timeless.

In Bittersweet, the island-country crowd may have found its Chiseled in Stone, a heart-piercing reflection on love and grief. Dress Blues, written by Jason Isbell, is similarly devastating.

If there's a true Jekyll-and-Hyde moment here, it comes near the end, with polar-opposite depictions of parenthood. The first, Junkyard, is a grinding, seven-minute nightmare of abuse and revenge that borrows parts of Pink Floyd's Is There Anybody Out There? and brings in Béla Fleck to play menacing banjo. The second, I'll Be Your Man (Song for a Daughter), is a tender message from a father that's as encouraging as Junkyard is horrifying.

The lasting impact of Jekyll + Hyde may depend on the direction from which the listener approaches it. It could be the contemporary country album that rocks most convincingly. If it's not that, it's the best rock album in recent memory that uses a banjo.

Download:Homegrown , Heavy is the Head, Mango Tree, Bittersweet, Dress Blues