Album Review – Brennen Leigh’s “Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love”

Classic Country (#510.1) on the Country DDS

Good luck finding a more pure and honest form of country music than what Brennen Leigh delivers as effortless as breath. Brennen doesn’t just sing country music. She IS country music. It emanates from her aura like a glow. She didn’t choose the preservation of country music as an occupation. It chose her—entering her like a vapor at some point after birth, and giving her no other option but to pursue it as a life’s purpose.

Brennen’s new album Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love is a classic country breakup record if there ever was one, inspired by the true life experience of getting swindled by a certain beau who will remain nameless here. But it’s a sad story with a happy ending after Brennen had her faith in love resuscitated by the “Professor of Twang” himself, pedal steel and lead guitarist Kevin Skrla, who plays all over this record, and also happens to produce it.

Talk about putting love into a record, that’s exactly what Brennen Leigh and Kevin Skrla do on this one quite literally, while communing with the ancestors of country music’s past from the ’50s and ’60s to make songs that would have been hits and standards in that era, and that impart a warm feeling of innocence and simplicity to the audiences of today. From the writing and singing style, to the instrumentation and tones, it is all authentic to the Golden Era of country in a way that immediately makes an old soul fulfilled.

The ultimate message of this album might be a hopeful one, but the majority of the songs focus on enumerating the emotionally roiling moments of a relationship unraveling, from suspicions of infidelity (“Tell Me”), to outright cheating (“Dumpster Diving”), to loneliness (“Alone in the Lone Star State”), to spite (“You’re Finally Hurtin'”), and many of the seasons in between. Brennen explores these sentiments in original songs that convey their emotional toll sincerely since she was experiencing these feelings when the songs were authored.

Young traditionalist Alex Miller, along with Elijah Ocean and Mary Bragg also help co-write a few of the tracks. But mostly these are Brennen Leigh’s sentiments captured raw and real. She then sings these songs with her signature conviction free of silly country affectations, which once again lends to the purity of the Brennen Leigh experience. Though it might be a stretch to characterize this album as conceptualized, there is certainly an arc that Brennen takes you on, resolving in the song “I’m Easy To Love After All.”

Beyond the breakup narrative, Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love is a great listening record from all the super tasty and twangy guitar work, complemented by some Floyd Cramer-style piano as well. Even if you don’t particularly care for the sad moments on the record, it’s simply a pleasure to listen to, punctuated by how the album ends on an instrumental song called “Little Magic Wolf.”

Every note played on this album is curated, intentional, and expertly placed, once again underscoring the “loved” aspect of how it was recorded. This also extends to guitar player Dave Biller, piano player Damian O’Grady, Matty Meyer on drums, and Josh Hoag on bass who built out the studio crew.

It might have been another blonde musician who hogged most all the attention for October 3rd album releases, and maybe music this pure and specialized will never set the world on fire or be featured at the arena level. It’s too good, and offered up with too much integrity irrespective of the treasure it might earn to break out into the masses. But for fans of Brennen Leigh, it’s recordings like Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love that make her nothing short of a superstar in their minds.

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8.3/10

Stream/Purchase Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love