Apparently no members of PETA have heard Hank Jr.'s new album, because if they had, he'd likely be on trial for beating a dead horse. Although his press material touts this album as maintaining Hank's "personal tradition of pushing his own envelope to new musical levels," there's nothing about this album that stands out. He invokes his newly found alter ego, a bluesman named Thunderhead Hawkins, for a half-assed blues number called "Last Pork Chop" that he offers in both an electric and acoustic form; he brags about Kid Rock being his rebel son in "F Word," in which he laments, "in country music, you just can't say the 'F' word," and he introduces the notion of "X-Treme Country" music in a song by that title. Fans likely will enjoy the intro to "If The Good Lord's Willin' (And the Creeks Don't Rise)," which features a 9-year-old Hank Jr. on a scratchy old recording from the Louisiana Hayride.

The most interesting thing about this album is that it was recorded in The Almeria Club near Troy, Ala., which holds a rich legend involving his father performing there back in 1947 and ultimately escaping with Hank Jr.'s mom when a jealous lover drew a gun. Hank Jr. was so smitten with the story that he bought the place, turned it into a recording studio, and produced the album that bears its name. He likely will get the most attention for the album's closing track, "America Will Survive," a song originally titled "A Country Boy Can Survive," that Hank revamped after the events of Sept. 11.

As for the rest of the disc, you can either listen to it or dredge up his old "Monday Night Football" theme song and play it over and over. There's really not much difference either way.