Several four star efforts make for a solid week of new releases.
Steve Earle
Alone Again… Live
The acoustic arrangements of a career-spanning set-list highlight how well-constructed his songs always are, but the setting also captures how weathered his voice has become. That works far better on some tracks than on others that just sound downright rough.
Tigirlily Gold
Blonde
A terrific debut from country’s best sister act since The Kinleys. The name will continue to be a barrier to their being given the credit they’re due here. The writing’s legit clever, the harmonies are intricate and full of surprises, and there are hooks for days.
Matt Castillo
Pushing Borders
Not really. The tracks on which he leans into his Hispanic heritage point the way to a more compelling style, POV. But most of this settles for being a solid iteration– he has a terrific voice, fwiw– of the 90s Hat Act acolytes who are having a moment in 2024.
Red Clay Strays
Made of These Moments
Gen Z has latched onto some lesser acts than this outfit, but the writing, singing, playing here rarely rise above a base level of competence. It’s fine. It sounds like if AI responded to a prompt of, “Create a new album produced by Dave Cobb.”
Rainy Eyes
Lonesome Highway
A lovely record about how the road to healing is a winding one, made at least somewhat more bearable by what we choose to focus our attention and energy on. Sharp observations of inflection points between self-sabotage versus self-determination abound throughout.
Brad Tursi
Parallel Love
A baffling record. How do you have someone this good as your lead guitarist and then release the faceless, mid records Old Dominion has put out for a decade? This smart, tuneful take on modern country with a heavy singer-songwriter bent puts his day job to shame.
Kyle Daniel
Kentucky Gold
Of the many gravel-throated country-blues dudes to emerge in Chris Stapleton’s considerable wake, Daniel’s perhaps the first who truly merits the comparison in form, content, talent. His long-time-coming debut offers greater sonic variety than Stapleton’s albums, too.
Beachwood Sparks
Across the River of Stars
A welcome return from an outfit I’ve always appreciated: I’ll forgive a derivative aesthetic as long as it comes from a place of affection and as long as the songs are well-constructed. As ever, they hit both of those marks with their cosmic country vibes.
Charley Crockett
$10 Cowboy Chapter II: Visions of Dallas
Fair to say at this point that he’s incapable of cutting even a middling record, let alone a bad one. Equally fair to question when he’s going to record a truly great one. This one ain’t it, but, song-for-song, it’s slightly stronger than its Chapter 1.
Avery Anna
Breakup Over Breakfast
Country-pop parts are mid or inexplicable (“vanilla” demands 1000 words to parse its mess of a message). But the emo-pop parts are absolutely glorious stuff that sound like Maren Morris updating the best Ashlee Simpson, Jimmy Eat World hits. More of that, please.
Charley has got to be the king of 4 star/5 records for me. I love his music but like you pointed out I’ve never been able to say which one is easily his best or say one is “great”. I always preorder because he just makes good music. Personally I love it when he goes away from Country and leans into blues and his band is fantastic.
Yep. That’s very much where I am with him: Never disappointed in the slightest, but also never bowled over. And I believe he has the capacity for that, but he’s just not ever thrown down what I’d consider an obvious “career record.” But he’s as consistently very, very good as anyone in the game.
Hope you all decide to review the recently released Amanda Kate Ferris album Rope the Wind.
Yes! Haven’t listened to it yet, but it’s in my queue.
…finally found the time to listen to brad tursi’s album “parallel love” – quite the opposite of a concept album, yet a most enjoyable one. parallel universe would have been an apt title too, especially in reference to his life with old dominion.