Black Stone Cherry seize life with both hands on new album The Human Condition

With Lynyrd Skynyrd due to hang up their boots, Black Stone Cherry are among the frontrunners to inherit the Southern rock crown. Seven albums in, the Kentucky quartet have developed a strong identity, forged around the gruff, emotion-charged drawl of guitarist Chris Robertson. Wrapped up immediately before lockdown, The Human Condition is charged with both despair and positivity, Robertson’s bellowing thinly veiled metaphors for repetition, perseverance, sadness, doubt, anxiety and, above all, optimism. When he sings: ‘Life is way too short to live this way,’ everyone will empathise.