Album Review – Christopher Seymore’s “King of Nothing”

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photo: Paul Davis


#510.1 (Classic country) and #510.2 (Honky Tonk) on the Country DDS.

Some feel the future of country music is in offering a more sophisticated approach. Others challenge that the music must adopt more modern sounds and themes to survive. But despite these proclamations, an increasing amount of creators are muffling these claims and moving in the opposite direction, and the fans are following.

These artists revel in the challenge of leaning into country music’s inherent clichés and touching on the same themes country songs have for decades, but doing so in different and inventive ways. As opposed to seeing the sonic parameters set around country music as a limitation, they get excited by enterprise of being creative within these rigid confines, taking it as a creative challenge in itself.

This is what you can unravel when listening to the new album King of Nothing by South Carolina-native Christopher Seymore now based out of Houston, TX. What you can also take from it is ten kick ass, easy-to-love country songs that sound just like country music always has, and always should. This is a great traditional/classic country listening record with a honky tonk heart. But if you want to delve a little bit deeper, you’ll also discover its quiet genius.

Take cheating songs for example. In country music, they’re both a dime a dozen, and some of the genre’s most cherished and important works. What Christopher Seymore does with the song “Cheated On” is he uncovers a universal truth of all of these cheating songs that has rarely if ever been exposed. Following this up with Peggy Forman’s “When Lovin’ Me Was Wrong” and later “Hell Yes I Cheated” explores this timeless topic of country from all perspectives.


Not every song is about cheating, but many of them involve the complexities of relationships like “When Your Down” about only being wanted when there’s no other option—another timeless country theme. “Just Right for a Jones” sounds like so many country songs, but none you’ve heard in the last 50 years. What these songs emphasize is how the human struggles broached in country songs are universal, and never come with an expiration date.

Along with some really quality classic country songwriting and savvy cover selections, Christopher Seymore’s secret ingredient is his producer and steel guitar player Kevin Skrla, infamous for touring with Summer Dean and others. Skrla not only slathers this album with killer licks throughout, he brings the perfect taste and the mastery of era to compliment each song on King of Nothing. Whether it’s ’50s traditional, or ’70s Outlaw, the mood is perfectly set by the instrumental approach and tones.

This album isn’t a masterpiece and isn’t intended to be. Though some of the writing in spots feels a little preliminary, and Seymore’s voice isn’t exactly perfect for this style of music, the effort here was to do something intentional—to take the making of country music seriously, and regard it as a legitimate art form, despite its relative simplicity. And in Christoper Seymore’s words, he also wanted to make something “disgustingly traditional country.”

In this enterprise, he valiantly succeeded.

8.1/10

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