Calder Allen is the clear leader among this week’s five new releases.
Calder Allen
Dreamers Drifters and Hiders
The rare album that gets more interesting as the artist gets more brooding. What ties Allen most closely to country tradition is his knack for setting his most downtrodden narratives to melodies that are deceptively catchy, upbeat. A refinement of his strong debut.
Zach John King
Wannabe Cowboy
I mean… if the boot fits… This sounds exactly like the music every other guy trying to break into the mainstream via Gen-Z socials is making: A lot of Wallen. A little Jelly Roll. A little residual Hunt. There’s very little here to say why him or why not him.
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes
I Built a World
One of Molly Tuttle’s PICs, she has the talent and the clout to rope in a Who’s Who of collaborators for her own record. What impresses most is her knowledge of exactly where her gifts do and do not lie, and she lets her guests do heavier lifting when needed.
Jayce Turley
Broke Down
KY young’un offers an impressive debut record; he’s a songwriter of wisdom far beyond his years and peers, and the production cuts a wide swath that suits his songs well. But I say this with all the love in my heart: Kid really needs to work with a vocal coach.
Travis Denning
Roads That Go Nowhere
No idea how anyone is supposed to distinguish any of these soundalike Music Row guys. A slightly better voice on this one than most of his peers, maybe, but there’s still nothing distinctive in the songwriting, POV, or production. They’re all banal in the same ways.
…kinda liked travis denning’s “after a few” quite a bit back in the day. that was something to progress on, i felt. seems he didn’t quite. calder allen sounds rather interesting on initial contact, some task to look forward to finding out more. sporting an austin healey and chevy belairs in that “stone” clip of his helps of course winning me over. likewise on jayce turley’s vocals – this more frequent listening to diffie lately, after the release of “hixtape vol. 3”, has not helped the case of all those new sosolala vocalists of late at all in my book. cool name however. miss keith-haynes’? there sierra hull recently set the bar in that field to a level that anything less ain’t just doing it for me anymore for the time being. why settle for less…? still, the first impression can be deceptive sometimes but top of my pile this ain’t.