I've been a fan of Everlast since his inclusion in Santana's "Supernatural". I loved his last "Whitey Ford Sings the Blues" and would have been happy with something comparable.

This CD is a good deal better. More refined - his trademark acoustic guitar against heavy baseline, his weaving of rap in with Tobacco throated lyrics, even the chorus' are cleaner - you can tell he paid a great deal of attention to this work.

I like pretty much every song on the album, but my favorite are the following:

Blinded by the Sun

Lonely Road

White Trash Beautiful

and absolute favorite on the album (listened to it like 20 times in a row) is "Sleepin' Alone".

I recommend this CD highly. Enjoy.

Christian Hunter

This guy hits the spot with me, with an important kind of musical statement for my generation. The music is a mixture of folk, blues, a little bit of rock and a smattering of rap. The vocal style is perfect for the music; that smokey, raspy, small venue barroom croon. The writing is gut wrenchingly real for a 30's something guy dealing with love, loss, and life in the trenches. I can relate. I am a lover of all kinds of heavy rock, and listening to Everlast once in awhile is simple, pure bliss. This is his finest album to date, and one can only assume he's maturing, and only getting better! It takes a special ear to appreciate this offering.

This review was originally written in 2004:

If you are casual Everlast fan or a longtime fan, this album is a must-have. If you liked Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, then you will definately like this album. It is much improved from Eat At Whitey's. Being a fan of his music from the Rhyme Syndicate days, I have enough knowledge of his work to give an objective opinion. When "Whitey Ford" came out I was a little suprised, but pleasantly. I felt "Eat At Whitey's" was lacking, but I supported it. "White Trash Beautiful" is much better than I expected. The production (most of it is produced by Eric himself) and the songwriting are excellent. There are more rhyming tracks on this one than the last, which are blazing. The singing tracks are all solid, with some incredible stand-outs, which is saying alot coming from an avid hip-hop / intermediate rock fan. There are no intro's/outro's/skits/filler music/fast-forward material. It is all music, well worth the money. Definately one of the best albums (any category) to come out this year thus far. Pick it up!!

I've been a fan of Everlast for years, and his run of solo albums since House of Pain ended is up there with any other genre-bending artist you can think of. He has never let us down, and doesn't here. His mix of blues, funk, rap, rock and folk comes out as a unique signiture sound like noone out there today. Ev expands further hear, with his most acoustic based album to date, which results in beautiful songs like Broken (probably my favorite from the album) and the title track. But this album really can't be classified because all the songs are such a fusion, which is really a return to the from of Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, while Eat At Whitey's had divers e songs that were each firmly one style. These songs have things like samples and drum machines next to live basses and acoustic riffs, things coming from all angles and the soup of sounds just works. His songwriting is top notch, using simple words to describe complex emotions (making them easy to relate to and truly FEEL), and working out great storytelling in songs like Blinded By the Sun. You get melodies, parts and breakdowns that you just don't expect from Everlast which is great. The chorus in Angel just explodes on you but with a great vocal line and chord progression instead of huge beats or riffs. His voice is gruff as ever, but he stays within his range and hits the notes as well as anyone could. It fits the bluesy tone of the music perfectly too, adding to the lyrics' power. Just check this album out to hear something you can't get anywhere else, it's purely Ev and that's all he and we need

Everlast delivers an album of tale-spinning, love-yearning, line-rhyming and stone-throwing in a mixed bag of crisp acoustic guitar picking, gut-scraping singing, heavy rhythms, and clever sound-mining. It's passionate, inventive, humorous and always interesting. The few pure rap songs include the obligatory four-letter content, and, not being a rap fan I can't get too excited by them, but I do enjoy "The Warning" and "Soul Music". On "Soul Music" and "Ticking Away" Everlast uses melodic speeded-up clips from old soul songs as counterpoint to his raps, and I've been trying to figure out whose distorted voice it is - Otis Redding? Solomon Burke? I'd love to find out. But the best songs here are the melodic ones, which comprise most of the album. My favorites are "Blinded By the Sun", "Broken", "Lonely Road", "Pain", "Maybe" and the title track "White Trash Beautiful", his declaration of love for the "trailer park queen" who "coulda found a better guy" but married him despite the fact that "all he could do for money was drive". Most of these songs begin with acoustic guitar, and could easily have veered off in a folky direction, but Everlast anchors them with heavy rock beats, great instrumental texturing, hip-hop accents and urban poet lyrics. Call it folk-rap. There is a lot of love for womankind in the lyrics and I hope Everlast finds (or has found) what he's looking for. This is the first Everlast CD I've heard all the way through, and I'm eager to hear more. If I actually liked rap, I'd give it five stars.