Album of the Year contenders from Kasey Chambers and Jett Holden lead a very strong week of new releases.
Billy Strings
Highway Prayers
Falling into Charley Crockett territory in that I’m wondering if his tremendous skill set does not include creating a singularly canon-ready album. He’s consistently good-to-great in the studio, and that’s the case here; these songs will soar on stage.
Jake Blount & Mali Obomsawin
Symbiont
Blount’s capacity for using Afro-futurism laced with folk conventions as the basis for prescient sci-fi narratives is simply a wonder, and he’s fully matched by Obomsawin here. Nary a country flourish as on his earlier work, but still a brilliant record.
Jett Holden
The Phoenix
I can’t think of the last time I heard so many fifty-cent words used on a country album; Holden’s use of language is simply a wonder to behold. As is the complexity of his POV. As is his powerful singing. This record outshines every would-be rock act in country today.
Nate Smith
California Gold
His baffling rapid ascent continues on a second album in six months, sharing two songs with and in no way better than the first one. There are a few moments that grate less, wherein he drops the gravelly, adenoidal bellowing and sings all right. This aesthetic is exhausting.
Luke Bryan
Mind of a Country Boy
Because “Mind of a Country Man-Child Who Is Twenty Years Too Old For Fully Half of What’s on This Album and Who Does Not Realize That Plenty of Rural Folks Actually Lead Rich, Examined Interior Lives That He Cannot Comprehend” would obscure the unflattering cover photo.
Kasey Chambers
Backbone
Extraordinary and daresay the best of a career with multiple classic, essential records. The rare album that is deepened by an autobiographical read (“Arlo,” “Divorce Song”) for how Chambers finds the shared humanity in her own unique experiences. A triumph of empathy.
Yes, I love Kasey Chambers album! I’ve only listened to it once so far, but I’m hooked already! “The Divorce Song” has the best line ever in it and it was a fun surprise that Shane Nicholson is part of it.:)
Leeann!
I hadn’t read the transcript of Kevin’s interview w Kasey before listening to the album of writing my review, so I was pleased to see that I wasn’t just over-reacting to it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing on “Divorce Song,” even as its humor is so perfectly on-brand for the two of them. And “Arlo” just left me reeling. The album also has some of the best singing of her career.
We kept such a firewall between us on this one because of the interview! I was hoping that I wasn’t overreacting to its excellence either, so I was elated when I saw your review!
So what you’re saying here is the Luke Bryan album is every bit as bad as its title and at least some of its song titles would suggest?