Album Review – Brit Taylor’s “Land Of The Forgotten”

Traditional Country (#510) and Appalachian (#519) on the Country DDS. AI = “Clean”

It seems like everyone wants to be country these days. But none of them can be Brit Taylor. She’s got the songs, the sound, and the voice that’s country through and through. She’s an artist that couldn’t not be country even if she tried. It glows from her like a radiant aura that any fan of country just wants to bask in, imparted to her like a pedigree from growing up in the corridor of the Country Music Highway in Kentucky where Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless, Ricky Skaggs, Tyler Childers, and so many others were raised.

The title of Brit Taylor’s new album Land Of The Forgotten refers to the hills and hollers of Brit’s native Kentucky and the greater Appalachian region that both time and the empathy of the American project often gaze over and ignore. But not in country music. If anything, there’s a worthy obsession over the region due to the the creative riches it holds. Nashville might be the home of country music. But Western Kentucky is its headwaters.

This new album from Brit Taylor is very much a family affair. It’s produced and primarily co-written by Brit’s husband, fellow performer and songwriter Adam Chaffins. It also comes around the time when the couple welcomes a new bundle of joy into the world. But whether fictionalized or culled from Brit Taylor’s past, these are songs are far from domesticated. They’re full of stories of heartbreak and turmoil, but the kind that forges strong souls that persevere.

When you hear a song like “Warning You Whiskey” set in waltz time, you can physically feel the war waging in a woman like only the best country songs can do as she attempts to arrest control over her man from the throes of brown liquor. When she sings about a “Bird Of Prey” being her guardian angel, you feel the inherent toughness that knows nothing but to endure.

Land Of The Forgotten is Appalachian truth set to traditional country sounds. There is no appetite on the album to soften the sentiments, to sheer the edges off the jagged points of the emotions as they rake across the skin, or to offer a spoon of sweetness to make the bitter sentiments easier to swallow. You want something more agreeable or pleasant, country radio is always there at your dispose.

Don’t take that to imply that Land Of The Forgotten is not accessible, at least to the audience that wants their country music to come with a level of potency. If there’s any criticism to levy here, it’s that Brit sometimes sticks a little too firmly to rhythmic cadences and lyrical themes that call to mind other compositions of country music’s past. But that’s also what’s great about country: it pulls from the familiar to be immediately pleasing, while presenting timeless themes in freshened perspectives.

Along with Brit and husband Adam Chaffins, songwriter Adam Wright also had a big hand in helping to compse these songs, with writing credits also bestowed to Jeremy Bussey, Clint Daniels, Jon Decious, and the legendary Pat McLaughlin. You have the pleasure of hearing Stuart Duncan play fiddle, mandolin, and banjo on the record as well, along with Justin Schipper (dobro, steel), Jedd Hughes (electric guitar), Chris Powell (drums, percussion).

Appalachia, Western Kentucky, true country music, and performers like Brit Taylor might be unjustly overlooked when it comes to the grand scheme of things in the frenetic attention economy. But as long as Brit and others bring the sounds, sentiments, and stories forth from the hills and hollers to regale those who appreciate these more authentic and unvarnished expressions, they will never be forgotten.

1 3/4 Guns Up (8.1/10)

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Stream/Purchase Land Of The Forgotten