Album Review – Muscadine Bloodline’s “The Coastal Plain”

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#562, #550.7 (Southern rock, Red Dirt) on the Country DDS

Well look at this little duo from Alabama, blowing up on socials, getting a tap on the shoulder by Post Malone to open up on his arena tour, and releasing an album that some are saying is the best all year.

As Kenny Rogers once said, there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done. Ol’ 2024 still has a few months left in her. But there’s no question that The Coastal Plain is creating tons of buzz, will get you feeling right and raise your spirits. It also operates in a wide range of emotions and textures.

If you queue this band up and click shuffle, you could get a song that sounds like full tilt Southern rock, another that sounds like heartfelt singer-songwriter Americana, another that’s Appalachian folk, or one that’s Oklahoma Red Dirt, and it’s all written and performed with authority. Similarly, Charlie Muncaster and Gary Stanton find the Goldilocks zone in between the substance and soul of grassroots country, and the sensibility of mainstream level infectiousness. It’s quite the sinister and effective recipe they’ve stewed up here.

Maybe this is not the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, or original music you’ve ever heard. But on The Coastal Plain, perhaps Muscadine has never gotten the dash of this, the pinch of that, and the shake of something else as right to make the execution near perfect. This is the album you reach for if you want to get your hands dirty with Muscadine Bloodline.

The songwriting is sneaky good, sometimes overtly stellar, and even when it leans on cliché, it does so in a cunning and smart way that doesn’t make the audience feel entirely silly or like they’re engaging in a guilty pleasure. Whether it’s the folksy and sentimental moments of “10-90,” the religious allusions of the opening song “Two Tattered Tulips,” or the excellent ender “Good In This World,” Muscadine proves they can write good stuff.


But the stock-in-trade for these Alabama boys are these rapid fire “bamalama bam bam bam” songs where they rattle off lyrics in their heavy accents, and it’s just as much about the rhythm and pentameter as it is whatever they’re saying. When you get your redneck cousin to translate for you, sometimes there’s still a lot of body in the lyricism or story. And sometimes it’s just kind of buzzy filler. Bootlegging songs are already a trope in country music, and there’s two of them on this album. But even the toughest of critics have to admit they’re pretty damn fun.

One artist’s borrowing is another artist’s influence. However you want to couch it, the song “Mary Riley” sure sounds like it could slide right into the catalog of the Turnpike Troubadours and nobody would be the wiser. This is even more evident, but for obvious reasons on the song “Tickets to Turnpike,” aided by the presence of Kyle Nix himself on fiddle. But hey, you can’t hate on a couple of younger songwriters getting inspired by folks like the Turnpike Troubadours.

It’s finding that sweet spot between the original and the familiar that makes Muscadine Bloodline so damn tasty. One of the album’s hits called “Weyerhaeuser Land” is chock full of stock buzzwords like “county line” and “rural route road.” It’s one of the numerous songs on the album about bagging the rich man’s daughter. But again, damn if it doesn’t get you singing along.

Don’t get caught discounting the great songs on this album either like the exorcising of demons in “One Man War,” or the anthemic “Pay Me No Mind.” Underpinning Muscadine Bloodline’s success is their ability to be all things to all people in the country music world and cast a wide net of appeal, while still presenting a relatively cohesive sound.

Muscadine Bloodline knows what they’re doing here, and they do it well. And even if on the surface they give off signals that may remind some of the list lyricism of the mainstream, or songs that shoot for radio play, they’re on the right side of turning the independent into the mainstream, and ushering in a new era of country music where the artist called the shots, and songs of substance can exist right beside fun ones.

8.1/10

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