Album Review Roundup: Vol. 1, No. 7

February 24, 2025 Jonathan Keefe Album Reviews, Bluesky Bullet Points 2

Four star efforts from Patterson Hood and Dean Owens lead the week.

 

Kameron  Marlowe

Sad Songs for the Soul

I appreciate the effort to contrast with Music Row’s mindless escapism, but the skill just isn’t there. Opens with a dreadful, mealy-mouthed Cam cover and never improves much from there; his singing consistently sounds like a poor imitation of Drake White. The best way that I can describe it is that he sings like he never learned how to swallow his saliva while he’s singing. His phrasing sounds moist in a way that, to my ears, is just unpleasant.

 

 

Patterson Hood

Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams

The aesthetic is more Sparklehorse than DBT, but it’s a shift that’s perfectly matched to Hood’s moodiest and most introspective songwriting to date: A pivot he executes gracefully, on an album that explores the past without ever once lapsing into too-easy nostalgia.

 

Wyatt Flores

Live at Cain’s

He continues his rapid evolution into one of the genre’s most exciting new talents, and he shines brightest on stage. But the mixing, especially in balancing the vocals, distracts from his gifts on what surely won’t be his last live album.

 

Sunny War
Armageddon in a Summer Dress
Rarely lives up to the audacity of its title, but there are some inspired moments on this, for sure. Ultimately, the AAA production lets her down, without the genre signifiers that have made her prior efforts a captivating blend of country, folk, and punk.

 

Dean Owens
Spirit Ridge
Collects 3 EPs’ worth of material into a single volume of impressive scope and thematic heft. As ever, he approaches Americana as a theme, not a genre. Owens knows why that distinction matters, and he continues to refine, deepen his songcraft over time.

Chris Kläfford

What I’m Running From

It takes legit chops to mimic Chris Stapleton with the precision that Sweden’s answer to The Beard of Truth does here. And there’s some meat to these songs, too, especially wrt matters of faith. But the mimicry detracts from that. Kläfford’s clearly talented, but who is he?

 

 

Christie Huff
Finer Things [EP]
As ever, I’m no genre purist. But exactly one of these tracks (“Dab A Dolly,” modestly charming and the best thing here) scans as country in any real way. The rest is some expired CHR pop that just sounds cheaply made. Her contralto is solid, at least.

2 Comments

  1. …i find live albums a rather clever and good way to capture the spirit and this moment in time of the gen z (concert experience). perhaps one should even concentrate more on live recordings to fathom and grasp the special attraction of zach bryan, noah kahan, wyatt flores et al.

    conveying their true self is a common problem of european country artist since they have to adapt to quite a degree an original art form that isn’t really theirs. too close to their grounds and it won’t fly far, too far off, it won’t either. tricky dilemma, it is (yoda). here’s one that truly comes from the (european country) heart. see/hear for yourself:

    https://youtu.be/xIQb4GMp5WQ?feature=shared

    ms. candell is actually a horse trainer in tiny liechtenstein.

    Reply

  2. How odd that Vince gill isn’t singing on the song that Kameron Marlow wrote with him, considering how easily he will sing on other people’s songs.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*