Darryl Worley started to gain a larger audience in 2002 when his second album,
I Miss My Friend, brought him to the top of the country charts, so he was on a career upswing prior to the release of
Have You Forgotten? in 2003.
Have You Forgotten? contains 16 songs, with six songs apiece from
Worley's first two albums, 2000's
A Hard Rain Don't Last and the aforementioned
I Miss My Friend, which constitute half of each record. Of the four new songs here, three are war-related and the fourth finds the singer stating "I Need a Breather," wishing he was wasting away in a Margaritaville, since he needs a break from "this angry boss man."
Worley goes out of his way to align himself with the red, the white, and the blue, standing in front of the stars and stripes on the front cover and posing with troops on the back. Then, of course, there's the flag-waving fervor of "Have You Forgotten?" itself, in which
Worley attempts to fuse the anger of
Toby Keith with the tear-jerking
Alan Jackson. The results feel more calculated than heartfelt, overshadowing the material from his first two albums, material that nonetheless suggests
Worley could be a neo-traditional country singer with some real promise. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine