Review: On 'Speed' Keller Williams Offers Jamgrass Takes on Pop and Rock Favorites

Rating: 7/10

If you've ever been to a jam-oriented festival, you're probably already familiar with Keller Williams, either as a solo artist or with one of his dozen or so side projects such as Gratefulgrass, Pettygrass, or Gospelgrass. Williams' blend of psychedelic folk and bluegrass guitar has made him a favorite among jam aficionados. Williams is also known for one-word titles for all of his albums. The latest, Speed, which drops 11/22 on his own label, is easily the most appropriately titled album of Keller Williams' career.

While Speed is labeled as a Keller Williams solo album, it is actually the latest in his series of collaboration with The Keels. Progressive flatpicker Larry Keel and his wife and bass player Jenny Keel are virtuoso instrumentalists in their own right and share the same kinetic bluegrass energy as Williams. On Speed, Keller and the Keels rework ten covers along with one original each from Williams and Larry Keel.

Staying true to their Speed title, the album comes roaring out of the gate with a cover of Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers' “Little Too Late.” Where Bluhm's original is a mid-tempo blues-folk rocker, Keller and the Keels turn it into a hyper-caffeinated jamgrass drag race. It's one of the highlights of the album, in large part because of Larry Keel's jaw-dropping lightspeed solo in the middle.

Another standout cover on the album is also its most peculiar. If you named a list of songs that would benefit from a progressive bluegrass makeover, you'd likely never make it to Ricky Martin's 1992 pop hit “Livin' La Vida Loca”, but in the hands of Keller and the Keels it sounds like that's the form it should have taken all along.

From there, the trio casts their net even wider. There are a pair of Weezer songs, “Island in the Sun” and “Hash Pipe.” Country sensation Kacey Musgraves' “Slow Burn” gets an Appalachian turn. The Doors' “Roadhouse Blues” turns into a honky tonk. They even take on The Presidents of the United States of America's 1996 alt-rock novelty hit “Peaches.”

The two original songs on the album also deliver. Williams' contribution to Speed is “Medulla Oblongata”, which makes about as much lyrical sense as you'd think a song by that title might. It's a song that Williams has said “follows me through the blurred lines of hallucinations and apparitions” and that's about as appropriate a description as you can get for a song that features dancing ghost moonshiners and revenuers, serotonin, and a little bit of The Lion King (because if you're going to try to rhyme “Medulla Oblongata” for three and a half minutes, you're going to get to “Hakuna Matata” eventually).

Keel's composition is one that may be familiar to fans of the duo. “Lizard Lady” could have come from the pen of The Grateful Dead, an acoustic jammer with exactly the kind of instrumental prowess you'd expect from The Keels.

As a whole, Speed is a fun album. There is enough familiarity in the covers to always feel connected to the source material, but enough innovation to make listening to the new versions worthwhile, and there's enough surprise to keep the whole thing fun.

Keller Williams has a full slate of winter tour dates with all of his various groups. You can find out where he's playing (and who with) here.