Jack White’s new effort is this week’s highlight.
Little Big Town
Greatest Hits
Sounds like they Taylor’s Version’ed this: The production and harmony arrangements are obviously different from prior releases. Some of those updates really work– “Sober” and “Better Man” are a bit heftier– but all three collaborations are messy and ill-conceived.
Sugarland
There Goes the Neighborhood [EP]
Nettles’ voice somehow keeps getting better and better, but the duo’s taste is as uneven as ever. “Georgia is Yours” is one of the very best tracks in their catalogue, but “Temporary Feeling” is as garish as their Incredible Machine era.
Justin Townes Earle
All In: Unreleased & Rarities: The New West Years
Like Amy Winehouse’s posthumous Lioness collection, this rarely captures a brilliant, vital artist at their best; were he still with us, it’s unlikely that most of these tracks would ever have seen the light of day. A bittersweet and disappointing listen.
X
Smoke & Fiction
Mercifully, avoids some members’ batshit political musings in favor of a lean and mean victory lap. As ever, their song structures underscore the throughline between punk and country, and this final effort is a testament of why they remain so influential.
Yung Gravy
Serving Country
An ironic piss-take of a record, which undercuts the idea that albums that sound like this can and should be taken seriously. Because, when this is giving (the Shania duet!!!), it’s pretty great. And it’s at least interesting when it’s not serving.
Maren Morris
Intermission [EP]
The songwriting and vocals are still so distinctly her own, but the production is perhaps a little too latter-day Swift to stand out as she makes her genre pivot. Would be even better had “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here” been included.
T. Graham Brown
From Memphis to Muscle Shoals
Were he or any of his collaborators still at their peak vocal capabilities, this record would smoke. As is, it’s a solid enough collection of country-soul from a singer who can still muster some bluster, as can the best of these partners in crime.
Amy Annelle
The Toll
A lovely, thoughtful record; her best since “Songs for Creeps” back in ’06, perhaps? As ever, her voice is a wonder of clarity, and her phrasing gives nuance to distinct narrators. A few songs go on walkabout, but the ambling spirit is part of the album’s charms.
Gavin Adcock
Actin’ Up Again
What’s hopefully the nadir for the current crop of Nickelback Country, the writing here has the emotional depth, basic human curiosity, and poetic skill of a not-particularly-bright fourth-grader, and his half-singing is never once in tune. Just godawful.
Amos Lee
transmissions
He’s at his best when he foregrounds country influences; this record is more firmly in the adult pop x folk overlap of his Venn Diagram. Though it could stand greater variety in tempo and dynamics, this is still a lovely, somber album steeped in loss and transition.
Jack White
No Name
Expected some of the country and roots flourishes he’s leaned into for the past decade, but they’re nowhere to be found. This is back to his blues and garage foundations, instead. Not “country” in any meaningful way, but it’s his best solo album by a sizable margin.
A couple of notes on the two records here by the former A-listers who have transitioned into “legacy act” status of late:
I’ve not yet seen confirmation that Little Big Town did re-record and/or give new mixes to the tracks on what is surely a contract-ending comp. But I’ve listened to their best singles enough times to know that “Boondocks” and “Sober” and “Better Man” and “I’m With the Band” all hit my ears different.
And, while all three of the collaborative tracks are some degree of poor, it’s worth noting that what they and Miranda Lambert did to “Little White Church” is a desecration. Lambert’s simply never sounded worse on record, and the song gives her nowhere to hide.
Sugarland are terrible on the LBT set, too. Their inexplicably reverent Phil Collins cover– which 6 adults believed, in the year 2024, was a thing any human was clamoring for– literally evokes an anxiety response in me. The chorus sounds like being screamed at by the entire cast of Glee in unison.
Which is to say, I didn’t think Sugarland still had something great in them. But I cannot oversell what a brilliant song and performance “Georgia Is Yours” is. At their peak, it would have been a massive hit and surefire awards-circuit juggernaut. The opening track of this EP would make for a pretty solid radio single. “Temporary Feeling” is just inscrutable– there’s a marimba influence to it that is just so, so garish– and “Get Your Hopes Up” belongs in The Hague.