I’m going to start this review by saying that no other album has a chance of competing with Guns N Roses’ Chinese Democracy as the best album of 2007, if it's actually released, except for Freedom’s Road. If you know me personally you will understand the weight that this statement holds. Mellencamp’s new album is easily his most important work since his 1985 masterwork Scarecrow.

Just like the small, farming-town tales of triumph and tragedy found on Scarecrow, Freedom’s Road is a brilliant collection of songs that sums up what I currently feel is an American as opposed to the values of the “redneck agenda” that Green Day rallied against on American Idiot.

Songs like “The American’s,” and even the already overplayed “Our Country,” express a message of unity and tolerance with an almost saint-like conviction. While Mellencamp’s opinions are abundantly clear in every song, he manages to avoid being overly critical and refrains from sounding drunk on personal politics.

With Freedom’s Road Mellencamp once again firmly places himself in the highest echelon of American songwriters. Freedom’s Road is the soundtrack for the beliefs of the post 9-11 counterculture, and is a stark tribute to the true meanings of freedom and the road we must walk to reach it.