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Brent Cobb & The Fixin’ — Ain’t Rocked In A While (Ol’ Buddy Records/Thirty Tigers)

Ain’t Rocked In A While? Well why the hell not?

Brent Cobb’s seventh album and his first with live band The Fixin’ is, as the title suggests, one of his more robust releases.

It turns out the songwriter responsible for Whiskey Myers’ Mud and The Steel Woods’ Let The Rain Come Down is riotously good as a rocker in his own right.

So what’s taken him so long?

Cobb, by all accounts, is keen for fans — new and old — to experience what he describes as ‘an album of reference’.

Apparently it’s his attempt at fixing — or Fixin’ — the disconnect and giving gig-goers a better idea of what to expect when he plugs in with his buddies.

Consequently, there are some seriously meaty Southern rock-styled riffs here.

Seventies-influenced grooves move a brisk album through the gears.

And if Cobb doesn’t quite ape his childhood favourites Sabbath, Metallica and AC/DC then there’s a heaviness here that hits home. Hard.

The 38-year-old’s journey from smalltown Georgia to Nashville via LA might have been soundtracked so far by Americana, folk and country.

But this powerful pivot’s particularly affecting.

By his own admission Cobb Ain’t Rocked In A While. Better late than never.

Hell Brent for leather

Bookended by Beyond Measure — both a blithe piano-led piece and a bristling garage rocker — Cobb is no slave to convention on an album recorded live to tape on the studio floor.

Its raw, rough and ready sound generates a feral energy.

And there are several occasions when Ain’t Rocked In A While is so far removed from Cobb’s familiar back catalogue it’s like listening to a different artist altogether.

The title track connects the dots between 38 Special and Ozzy-era Sabbath.

Elsewhere there’s the sludgy, swampy outlaw country beloved of The Cadillac Three.

And fans of Tyler Bryant will find plenty to love about an edgier than fuck record.

Bad Feelin’ sounds like Skynyrd and Free jamming on a hot Alabama night.

Even If It’s Broke is The Fixin’ at their fabulous best — juxtaposed with the haunting In Our Hands it makes for the best seven minutes of a truly brilliant record.

Cobb’s come a long way since cousin Dave flew him to the West Coast to record a debut EP.

But few could have imagined him coming this far.

Ain’t Rocked In A While is more than a turn in the road — it’s a lost in the mist, blind corner.

Surely nobody saw it coming.