Under Fire is independent followup to Green River Ordinance’s 2009 major label debut Out of My Hands. Without major label backing GRO has to create a worthy follow up to an album that created a great deal of hype the band garnered from their debut, which had songs featured on numerous shows, and the single Out of My Hands even charted twice on Billboard Adult Top 40 list. Under Fire does a great job as a follow-up to a great album, and should help make GRO a household name.

For those unfamiliar with GRO’s style they are easily comparable to bands like The Fray or Matchbox 20 but tend to offer more genre variations. Under Fire features serious flirtations with CCM, Alt-Country and even Blues Rock. The only real downfall in the album, and GRO is unfortunately despite great songwriting, the singing lacks in variation especially as songs seem to change genres. At any point an audio track could be lifted, placed in another track and it would not change the song much.

“Love Laid Down” is a track that opens with strong Alt-Country roots that is hard to resist. It is a beautiful track with poignant, original lyrics that is hard not to love at first listen. The song does not stay in the Alt-Country tracks for very long, but somehow is effectively transitioned into what is an expansive and loud close. It isn’t the best track of the album but for shows what the band is able to do over the course of a single song while never feeling forced.

“San Antone” is another track that opens with Southern flavor, a bit of a mix of Alt-Country and Blues driven Rock. Unlike “Love Laid Down” this track continues the sound throughout its entirety creating a track that feels ever so slightly out of place on a Pop Rock album, but it the song is good enough it isn’t even a noticeable irritation. This track is unabashedly sentimental, but most the album is, and it is hard to dislike a song, or a band who can be so unabashedly experimental.

“Under Fire” is the title track of the album, and as such deserves a bit of extra scrutiny. It is a hopelessly optimistic appeal to someone struggling with what seems to be isolation and a good bit of depression. The song is generic enough it has solid appeal to listeners going through relatively any crisis while being written well enough it never sounds truly vague. The song is good but it relies on the much over used chorus expansive chorus of ‘ohs’ to give it a bit more strength and it comes off as cliched.