The record review section is no place for political discourse. And, some would argue, neither is the record bin. Former Neville Brothers and current funky Meters guitarist Brian Stoltz knows this. On God, Guns & Money, he’s calling those people out on this full-length antiwar diatribe: “They’ll cut the tongue right from your mouth. The artists will be first,” he intones
on Part One of the title track. And while there aren’t many Dylanesque
lyrical revelations to be found in these 53 minutes of funk and blues-rock, Stoltz, whose brother is in Iraq, does get a few solid licks in. “There’s plenty of money in this business of God.” “I walk the floor from disgust till dawn.” “Jesus never walked around with a weapon in his hand.”

 For Brian, the world he knows has devolved into a surrealist nightmare, one in which George W. Bush—whom he damns to hell in “Chicken Hawk”—has perpetrated “The Greatest Armed Robbery In History” and created a climate that tears families apart in “Opposite Sides of the War.” Only “This Christmas” and “Still Some Sense Left In The World” offer any respite. And since one song imagines a holiday truce of sorts and the other gazes fondly back into what seemed like a simpler past, the CD’s climate is a bleak one indeed.

If you’re still reading, you more than likely agree with Stoltz on most of this stuff. But is the music any good? Yes, although it’s not as distinctive as his lyrical stance—musically, it’s a cocktail of very modern, very professional New Orleans roots music, topped off with plenty of the guitarist’s signature rubbery licks and given a self-produced pop-rock punch. (The sentiments of “War Song” wouldn’t be half as forceful without the giant Godzilla guitar riff that keeps stomping on the three.) And while “What Is Real?” and the gorgeously dark “Opposite Sides” are more reflective than spiteful, they still pulse with a righteous anger and a frustrated
befuddlement. If nothing else, this CD proves that some very blue people still reside within some very red states: “They trashed me on the soapbox last time for speaking my mind,” he grumbles on “War Song,” perhaps referring to his last disc, East of Rampart Street. This time, he’s responded like the President himself does to criticism: a lot more of the same. And whether
you call that stubbornness or fortitude depends on your opinion of both men.