Album Review – Brad Paisley’s “Tacklebox (Disc 1)”

Country (#500), Neotraditional Country (#510.8), and Traditional Country (#510.1) on the Country DDS.

This record and the songs on it are so good, you’re a little mad about it. You’re not mad that theses songs are finally seeing the light of day. You’re ecstatic about that. You’re angry that it took so long. You’re angry that one of this generation’s most clever songwriters and strongest pickers has been in a virtual career stasis for the last decade since he wouldn’t play ball with Bro-Country. This is a former CMA Entertainer of the Year winner, and all we’ve been getting is a run around about new music, aside from a Christmas record, and these new-to-us songs that were mostly written and/or recorded much earlier in his career.

But there’s no looking this gift horse in the mouth. We’ll take these first 13 songs accumulated under the name Tacklebox (Disc 1) (even though it’s a digital-only release), and remain excited for more songs that Paisley promises are on the way through this “living” project. Sure, it’s a strange way to distribute music one or two songs at a time at seemingly random intervals. But after waiting like patience on a monument for what was supposed to be his latest record, the Appalachian-inspired Son of the Mountains that was promised all the way back in 2023, we’ll take it.

What Tacklebox really illustrates best is how simple and easy making good country music can be. Just find yourself some catchy lyrical hooks and lean into them, then put some good ol’ country music instrumentation behind them, and really, you’re good to go. Like the John Goodman character Walter Sobchak said in the film The Big Lebowski, “The beauty is in its simplicity.” Granted, that plan really didn’t work out for Walter and The Dude. But it works out for Brad Paisley here.

There’s just so many funny lines and references in the song “This Town Ain’t Small Enough.” It’s the perspective the song takes that reminds you why you love country songs, while it also happens to be a perfect diagnosis of Nashville. The song “Helen Back” makes use of the kind of wordplay that so many iconic country songs do, even if it’s kind of stupid, cornpone, and cliché. It’s these kinds of songs that make some hate country music, while for others it elicits nostalgia and a warm feeling like only a simple and clever country song can.

There’s also plenty of heartbreak and sentimentality in these songs, yet without sacrificing those big clever lyrical hooks like you hear in the songs “Out of the Picture” and “Home Sweet Hotel.” It’s when the songs don’t come with a noticeable hook that Brad Paisley kind of loses you, like on the final two songs of the album. No matter if the songs are funny, sad, or come with a hook though, everything on Tacklebox is genuine country, with plenty of fiddle and steel guitar, and twangy Telecaster from a picker who’s not especially known for his vintage-sounding tone.

But let’s also be open and honest about what Tacklebox really is. Though they’ve been someone coy about specifics of where and when each individual song was derived, they’ve confirmed many songs were penned and sometimes recorded many years ago. Some of the songs are said to be new or new recordings. But a lot of this stuff is coming from the earliest incarnations of Brad Paisley’s career when he was primarily a songwriter, not necessarily a retooling of his sound and approach, and a bubbling over wellspring of new inspiration.

It’s fair to characterize the songs of Tacklebox as warmed over or re-recorded archive material, however good it might be, or how relevant in my come across with all the current emphasis on ’90s country. There’s also an “always good, never great” aspect to the songs, just because they all take that catchy, hooky approach. Still though, that hooky nature is so satisfying. These are the kinds of songs AI could never write since they rely on wordplay a machine could never identify as cunning.

Guitarist Zach Childs explained how this whole project came about in a recent video.

It all started in early 2025 during a random dinner with my buddy Dan Strain (Danocaster Guitars). A college-aged waiter recognized us, and fast forward a few months to the Nashville Vintage Guitar Show, I ran into him again. He was trying to sell his Brad Paisley Silver Sparkle Road Worn Telecaster to buy a much-needed acoustic guitar. I took him over to meet Brad to get it signed, and they ended up in a deep conversation.

Turns out, this guy was a Belmont graduate who had interned at SeaGayle (Brad’s publishing company). He started rattling off unreleased song titles from Brad’s massive ’90s songwriting vault, tunes written back when Brad was a professional songwriter aiming for cuts by Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, and George Strait. That conversation lit a spark, leading Brad to dig those tracks out of the archives, play them for the label, and head straight into the studio.

It’s hard to hate on what Brad Paisley pulls out of his Tacklebox. It’s a new day in country music, and if that allows Brad Paisley and others the latitude to be able to release actual country songs whether they’re new or old or a combination of both, we’ll take it. Because this is the version of Brad Paisley we all know and love the most.

8/10

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Stream/Download Tacklebox (Disc 1)