Aaron Lewis couldn't have found a song more different from his country debut to release as a second single. 'Endless Summer' is uptempo, hooky and even whimsical, while 'Country Boy' was more along the lines of Hank Williams Jr.'s 'A Country Boy Can Survive.'

The new single speaks to a different audience in a way Lewis doesn't seem totally comfortable with. The rhymes are clunky and the melody is forced. Like he did on 'Country Boy'-- a song that barely charted but sold a ton of singles -- the former Stained frontman is singing from personal experience. It's just difficult to imagine him in a "rag top" with the radio up and a warm breeze blowing through his salt and pepper goatee.

"Loadin' up and living right / Fast cars on a summer night / Breeze is warm and the moon is bright / There's endless summer," Lewis sings during the first chorus. "Boogie boards and diggin' holes / Sand castles and fishin' poles / What a way to save my soul / This endless summer."

'Endless Summer' is the first song to name drop Jason Aldean, while taking a swing at a pop princess in the very next line. "Aldean's on the radio / Ain't it funny how they sing along / Makes you smile just a little bit because it's not a Miley Cyrus song," Lewis sings in the first verse. It's a great line that will win him more fans than he loses.

"Now we're at our little getaway / So we go and grab the fishin' poles / I can't think of any other better way for us to cleanse our souls," he adds later. It's difficult for an artist to cross over into the country music genre, but perhaps more than any artist but Darius Rucker, there is a willingness to accept Lewis as the genuine country boy he is. He's played with both extremes -- perhaps his comfort zone is somewhere in the middle.

2.5 Stars
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Listen to Aaron Lewis's 'Endless Summer'

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