Tyler Childers
Purgatory
2017
No album since Patty Loveless’ landmark Mountain Soul has delved deeper into the nuances of Appalachian theology than Tyler Childers’ Purgatory. While Childers’ first magnum opus isn’t the full-on sociological study that made Loveless’ album such an endlessly dense text, he’s not far off from that highwater mark of what the best country music can do.
Perhaps the most critical distinction is that Purgatory is more narrowly focused on the ways so many religious denominations have their practices cross-pollinated in insular, isolated congregations and communities. The album’s cover suggests that Lawrence County, Kentucky, where Childers’ hometown is the county seat, serves as an earthly stand-in for many of the different interpretations of purgatory.
Over the course of these songs– bangers and twangers, every one of ‘em– Childers creates a sense of place where a soul might find a path toward salvation but is more likely to lead a life that might need a little bit of spot-cleaning before being ready for the hereafter. His narrators may invoke the Almighty here and there, but they aren’t always on the best of terms. Truly, have parentheses ever done heavier lifting than they do on opener “I Swear (To God)”? Friends and family might try to lead him to a more righteous path, and some of his narrators are more receptive to that message than others. These folks are just as likely to find the divine while running up and down “Whitehouse Road” or to leave it up to a good Catholic girl to try pray for him (on the title track) as they are to be sure they’ll be part of the “Universal Sound” when their time comes.
Childers would drill even deeper into some of the peculiarities of this holler theology on Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven, which tackled complexities like universal reconciliation, the appeal of “old time religion” in a modern world, and what the glory and splendor of the afterlife might actually entail. Purgatory is more invested in the here and now, and it’s the album that established Childers as our most thoughtful and empathetic champion for Appalachia.
Additional Listening
More from Tyler Childers
- The aforementioned Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven gives three different takes on an actually-from-here hillbilly elegy.
- Country Squire, much like fellow Kentuckian Sturgill Simpson’s entry in this feature, found Childers refusing to be pigeonholed by the genre purists who’d been drawn to him.
Fellow #KentuckyProud Acts
- The last 20 years have seen a resurgence in the artistry of Kentucky.
- Brit Taylor’s Kentucky Blue hits a sweet spot between a contemporary POV and a bluegrass-minded take on country.
- From the opposite end of the Commonwealth, S.G. Goodman has crafted a small but essential catalog, with Old Time Feeling as her best to date.
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