Zoe Muth World of Strangers Few artists can make “weary” sound as engaging as Zoe Muth. Even though she rarely picks up the tempo past a casually swinging shuffle, Muth captivates with her artfully turned
Little Big Town Pain Killer Rather than focusing on their unrivaled vocal skill, Little Big Town and producer Jay Joyce approach Pain Killer like a game of “Chicken”: Listening to the album, it appears that
Garth Brooks Man Against Machine Garth’s first proper studio album in thirteen years is chock full of all of his best and worst traits, but thankfully errs more often on the side of subtlety over
Blake Shelton Bringing Back the Sunshine He’s been coasting on his celebrity status and his brand of aw-shucks humor for years, so it’s encouraging that Blake Shelton’s Bringing Back the Sunshine seems less phoned-in than
Angaleena Presley American Middle Class Presley’s upbringing in the hollows of Eastern Kentucky provides her with an endless well of believable first-person details that she uses to create the quirky, cockeyed fictions on American Middle
Brad Paisley Moonshine in the Trunk Paisley’s last four albums have established a pattern of something slightly progressive or challenging (American Saturday Night, Wheelhouse) followed by a course-correction back toward baseline (This is Country Music,
“Girl Crush” Little Big Town Written by Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, and Liz Rose Beyond their lush four-part harmonies and their incorporation of Fleetwood Mac’s influence into the country idiom, perhaps Little Big Town’s greatest
“Little Red Wagon” Miranda Lambert Written by Audra Mae and Joe Ginsburg The bizarre handling of the singles from Miranda Lambert’s Platinum continues unabated with the arrival of “Little Red Wagon.” After leading off with
If you were listening to New West Records’ An Americana Christmas sampler over the holidays, you would have heard tracks from the likes of Dylan, Cash, Emmylou and other Americana legends. Tucked in alongside those
2015 is off to a sad start for country music as a whole, and the Grand Ole Opry in particular. From the Tennessean: Country Music Hall of Famer Jimmy Dickens, the Grand Ole Opry’s most