This week’s top effort is an Album of the Year contender from Kip Moore.
Jason Isbell
Foxes in the Snow
A few lines that scan too much like clunky, purple prose draw attention to themselves: They’re the one uneven window box hanging loose and in need of repair on the dollhouse. Beyond that, it’s an incisive and raw divorce record with some career-best singing and guitar work.
Caylee Hammack
Bed of Roses
A triumph of resilience over both external and self-inflicted hardships, and Hammack, who should’ve been a massive star so many times by now, sells every second of it. A few lapses in lyrical quality control aside, this captures a major talent in near-peak form.
Mackenzie Carpenter
Hey Country Queen
She’s got something here, but the album’s so scattershot that Carpenter lacks a real identity. The best moments are those when she sings in her natural voice and goes for ribald humor, but there are just as many unpleasant mainstream country Pick Me affectations.
Redferrin
Some City, Somewhere [EP]
The worst vocalist in modern country makes Morgan Wallen sound like Roy Orbison on a cliché-addled set of songs that, at a scant 20 minutes, feels like an exercise in time dilation as a form of torture. Just godawful.
JD Clayton
Blue Sky Sundays
The 70s-styled country rock aesthetic feels rote in a way that does at least something of a disservice to his distinctive songwriting. This is a good record, sure, but his is an interesting perspective that really demands less affected singing and roots-rock licks.
Hannah McFarland
Broken Hearts [EP]
Tons of promise here, with songwriting that shows a savviness with genre tropes and a strong, clear singing voice. The uniform midtempo, melancholy aesthetic supports a thematically coherent EP, but it raises some questions of her range. Bring on a full album.
Edwin McCain
Lucky
Had he released this exact record concurrent with his pal Darius Rucker’s mainstream country pivot, he’d likely have gotten a hit or two off of this. But in 2025, it sounds like a relic of 2010 Music Row. His voice has held up great, to his credit.
The Lumineers
Automatic
I mean, it does sound that way. Fundamentally unchanged from their Stomp-Clap-Hey-day, there’s nary a note here to disappoint their still-considerable fanbase nor to convert those of us who’ve always been non-believers.
Kip Moore
Solitary Tracks
His magnum opus in every way, an album of deeply-felt, melancholy heartland rock. He remains one of mainstream country’s biggest missed opportunities this century, but his thoughtfulness and introspection continue to challenge genre’s gendered norms.
At 23 songs x 90 minutes, the biggest surprise is that the tracks are so uniformly good-to-great that the only obvious edit is the *very good* pre-release track that includes a “burn it down like California,” lyric that scans as distasteful at this exact moment in time.
Chase Matthew
CHASE
His EP was one of the 3 or 4 worst things I listened to in 2024, and here he is again already, with an album that’s exactly as repellent but about 726 times longer. Doesn’t even have novel insights into the psyche of this lost generation of aggrieved, entitled white men.
Cash & Skye
Just a Stranger
Rilo Kiley is in their literal bloodline, and the twangy SoCal country-rock of early RK is all over this winning debut. The vocals need coaching– especially his– to take them farther, but the tunes sure are good, with a wry humor and gift for melody.
Justin Wells
Cynthiana
Tremendous. Of the current bumper crop of gifted Kentucky artists, Wells may be the purest narrative songwriter, and the production here leans into his home state’s musical traditions without pulling focus from his most personal and incisive writing to date.
I’ve become a fan of Kip Moore in the last couple of years. I never really given him much notice until Kevin’s review of “Good Life”, which introduced me to such a fun song! So, I started listening to his music and found that I really enjoy him. I’m really glad that he released this album. It’s very good.
My favorite of the Isbell album is te title track and “Don’t Be Tough.”