A five star effort from Moira Smiley leads this week’s batch of new releases.
Midland
Barely Blue
Had the Authenticity Fetishists not taken them out at the knees, they’d be on an A-list victory lap with this record, and the mainstream would be all the better for it. Cobb’s best production work in years, and a band that simply keeps getting better and twangier.
Kassi Ashton
Made From the Dirt
What I love about this record is how Ashton incorporates points of influence and reference she knows she can get away with because she’s smarter and savvier than most everyone else working on Music Row. She can turn one hell of a phrase, too.
Moira Smiley
The Rhizome Project
A heady, tremendous masterclass in arrangement and composition. Smiley’s approach to these folk tunes is to tease apart their interconnected roots to find what makes them life-sustaining: It’s as much a study in modern botany as in folk traditions.
RVSHVD
It’s Rashad
He shines brightest on trad-country numbers, but it is also a powerful thing to hear a black man take the exact aesthetic of Aldean and Gilbert and crank it up farther than they ever could. As a reclamation, this is tremendous stuff. I just wish some songs were better.
Keith Urban
High
Way too slick for its own good at times, this is still his best album since 2010 and includes some songs and performances (opener “Straight Line,” especially) akin to his early-aughts peak era. But there are also some lyrical tropes he should’ve outgrown years ago, too.
Brantley Gilbert
Tattoos
His aesthetic of “late-90s nü-metal with a drawl and a Skoal ring” is literally never going to be something I’m on board with, nor will his intermittent lapses into toxic masculinity tropes. There are a couple of more introspective and/or tuneful moments, but they’re rare.
Rebecca Frazier
Boarding Windows in Paradise
I love the thoughtful thematic work on this: Escapism that’s tempered by keeping a watchful eye on the horizon. Frazier’s joined by some ace collaborators who contribute to the overall vibe. And praise be for the Bluegrass cover of “Holiday” I never knew I wanted.
Rachel McIntyre Smith
Honeysuckle Friend [EP]
A just lovely singing voice brings an apt sweetness to Smith’s narratives of navigating the uneven terrain of young adulthood. The best moments here are those when she’s at her most interior, which bodes awfully well for her trajectory as a songwriter.
Kara Cole
Firefly [EP]
The vulnerability she displays in her writing is quite impressive, and it overcomes the occasional lapse in lyrical finesse. She’s a sneaky powerful singer, too, and the punchy arrangements here embed ample twang into her roots-rock. Eager to hear a full-length.
Lisa Morales
Sonora
Morales’ music fascinates for her masterful, purposeful fluidity with genre and language, and her solo work has never been more heartfelt or evocative than on this tribute to her late sister and musical partner. A captivating listen that moves in a way that feels alive.
Maddie & Tae
What a Woman Can Do [EP]
Their whip-smart writing and close vocal harmony arrangements have always deserved far better than they’ve gotten from the industry. Some real bangers here that would’ve been huge hits in a better timeline, too, but some of the production is overpowering.
Willie Watson
Willie Watson
Distinguishes himself immediately from his work with OCMS in subtle but important ways: He crafts brilliant narratives in old-timey traditions that are relevant for their empathy, rather than telling contemporary tales set in an old-timey aesthetic. A terrific solo debut.
Russell Dickerson
Bones: The EP
From a very competitive field, he emerges (or is it dissolves?) as the most anonymous of his generation of radio hitmakers. Each track here could spend 60 weeks trudging to #1 before evaporating from the consciousness, and who’d ever know from whence they came?
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