Kevin Oliver, writer for No Depression, said this: "On their second album, South Carolina"s American Gun sift Uncle Tupelo, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen through a filter of southern gothic story-telling and rock "n" roll energy, coming out with a batch of pure, stripped-down twang "n" roll." Frontmen Todd Mathis and Donald Merckle trade songs throughout; Mathis offers up the drawling Horses and the appropriately guitar-heavy Neil Young Mood, while Merckle keeps to a tightly focused pop-rock sound on Fight Song and Drunk Girls.