The truth can be a downright ugly and thankless business, but one that Michael Dean Damron takes great pride in conducting. As the frontman for I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, he spent the first half of this decade cutting his teeth on the finer points of delivering sermon-like epithets and exposing his own personal demons that has resulted not only in an impressive body of work but the art of truth telling, for better or worse. After 4 albums (three studio and one live), half of one in the can and a plethora of tours, Mike up and pulled the plug on Sonofabitch. Somewhere in between, however, he provided us with a glimpse of what to expect after the dust settled. In 2005 he released a solo album, Perfect Day For A Funeral that gave some indication that he may have needed some breathing room. Now his restlessness is to come to a boil with Bad Days Ahead, his first post-SOB release with his new backing band, Thee Loyal Bastards. Thee Loyal Bastards include Allen Hunter (Eels) on bass, Sam Henry (The Wipers) on drums and Morgan Geer on guitar, as well as Kelly Gately (Fireballs of Freedom) on guitar and Kristen Holovnia on cello. In a market so over-saturated with singer/songwriters pressing to pimp their wares with watered-down musings, where mediocrity is often congratulated with heavily moved units and radio play, ?and whose climate doesn’t take too kindly to those who stand up barrel-chested in defiance to such, Damron has his work cut out for him. With songs that tip their hats at his heroes (Steve Earle, Alejandro Escovedo, Townes Van Zant and Waylon Jennings, for example), Bad Days Ahead is an avalanche of brash truths and dark stories set to his own Americana landscape. Like many of his songs prior, he has a penchant for targeting his subject with sniper scope eyes. The target most commonly aimed at on Bad Days is Damron himself. "I’ll show you, baby, how bad I can hurt myself", he snarls on I Swear To God, a bruising number about his divorce. It seems Damron has picked enough bones to open his own graveyard and Bad Days Ahead is a well honed viewing of the bodies he has buried.