Album Review – Shawna Thompson’s “Lean On Neon”

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#510.3 and #580.3 (Hard Country, Classic Outlaw Country) on the Country DDS.

Well deep fry my okra. You want country? You damn well better, and bring your appetite, because Shawna Thompson is serving up heaping helpings of it here. There’s no shrinkflation in twang happening in Shawna Thompson’s universe. There’s more country packed into this thing per square inch then perhaps any other release in the last year. You might want to sequester this album from the rest of your catalog because it just might submit your Celine Dion records with a rear naked choke when you’re not looking.

Maybe you remember Shawna Thompson from her time in the country pop duo Thompson Square with her husband Kiefer. But trust me, you’ve never heard Shawna Thompson like this before. It’s fair to wonder if anybody actually ever heard Shawna Thompson previously. Sure, we all heard her singing. But that wasn’t Shawna Thompson. That’s what she had to become to keep the lights on and make the suits happy. This is what Shawna Thompson actually sounds like. And ladies and gentlemen, it’s Country.

The truth of the matter is that you really never know what so many of the mainstream major label country artists would sound like if it was up to them and you were able to peel the veneer back, especially the performers who were coming up when Thompson Square was. Many artists show up to Nashville with the best of intentions and full of genuine country influences. And then the big machine gobbles them up and spits out terrible radio singles.

Let’s not completely razz on Thompson Square since some of their early stuff was still pretty good. But the moment a performer stops chasing superstardom and just starts being themselves, this is when you find some of the greatest work in their catalog. Lean on Neon certainly qualifies as one of those releases born out of creative freedom.


You really can’t emphasize enough just how hardcore country this album is, and across every single track. It’s so country in fact, it may open itself up to some criticism for being a little too “one note,” or lacking variety between tracks. But it’s so staunch and severe in it’s conviction to country music, this constitutes its own form of bold creative expression. There aren’t any of those silly country songs that call out pop country music. This album simply puts its foot down and declares adamantly, “This is country.”

There’s drinking songs, there’s heartbreak songs, and Shawna Thompson wrote or co-wrote seven of the album’s 13 tracks. She also threw in a couple of obvious covers like Hank Jr’s “Outlaw Women.” Yes, this album is so attitudinal in its country music posture, there’s a few songs that you could place in the Outlaw country category too.

Shawna also embraces some legends and contemporaries of country music through the album, collaborating with Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Pam Tillis, Jim Lauderdale, Rhonda Vincent, Leona Williams, Leslie Satcher on a couple of songs, along with Sunny Sweeney and Ashton Shepherd on “Outlaw Women.” Though the album does have a rather static sound and approach throughout, the harmony and instrumental features do offer some really nice texturing for each song.

But the story this album tells goes much deeper than the music. Shawna Thompson says, “Lean On Neon is the album I moved to Nashville to create. It just took a while.” This is the story of so many mainstream country music performers. Many never get the opportunity to make the album they moved to Nashville to make. Lucky for her and the rest of us, Shawna Thompson did, and made the most of it.

1 3/4 Guns Up (8.2/10)

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Purchase/Stream Shawna Thompson’s Lean On Neon

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