Album Review – Sundy Best’s “Feel Good Country”
It is a spirited competition among country and Americana songwriters right now to pen the most devastating heartbreak songs possible in a race to to see who can rip your heart straight out of your chest like that guy in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom movie and stop on it the hardest. Country fans are clamoring for this type of stuff like masochists, while even the mainstream of country music has gotten in on the game.
Leave it to Kentucky duo Sunday Best to buck this trend and attempt to swim upstream by embracing the positivity of life and the righting of the mind, all while featuring a piece of playable furniture as one of the primary instruments. It’s a daunting task, but one they accomplish on their new album Feel Good Country.
Friends since elementary school, singer and guitar player Nicholas Jamerson and cajón player Kris Bentley were a unique but spirited and well-received duo from Kentucky’s musical heartland when the debuted nearly a dozen years ago. In 2018, they officially called it quits, and Nicholas Jameson focused primarily on his solo career. Jamerson still has a solo project coming out later this year (Peace Mountain 5-19), but at some point during the pandemic, Sundy Best caught a second wind and here we are.
The songwriting and melody composition of Nick Jamerson and Kris Bentley is the reason you come to sup at the table of Sundy Best, and why you stick around and ask for seconds. In 2023, there aren’t supposed to be unclaimed melodies as classic and fetching as the ones found in the chorus of “Bad Imagination” and “I Won’t Be Bothered” just laying around. But Jameson nabbed them, and put them to good use.
It’s the messages though that may resonate with some audience members the most. Townes Van Zandt once said that there are two types of music: the blues and “Zippity Doo Dah.” This album isn’t exactly the latter, and it’s not patronizing in its positivity either. It’s more about re-framing your perspective, which the key to most happiness is all about.
“I Won’t Be Bothered” is a song about not allowing little things or negative people to bring you down. “Walk by Faith” is about trusting yourself, trusting the cosmos, and trusting the process of life. Self-reflection is critical to this process, and this is what is broached in possibly the album’s best cut called “Bad Imagination” co-written by Jamerson with Adam Landry about how it’s often ourselves who most impede our pursuit of happiness.
Feel Good Country doesn’t hang entirely on this positive theme. “Winding Through the Woods” written by Kris Bentley is about returning to your hometown. Sundy Best is best considered a singer/songwriter project with music that is more country than it is anything else. But Sundy Best is also not singularly bound by the country genre. Don’t get flipped out by the opening title track, by the way. It’s just a little audio silliness to set the mood.
This leads us to the cajón. Oh, the cajón. Perfect as a nightstand, a stool for unexpected company, a step for reaching a light bulb, or one of those little tables some weed smokers love to use for their nugs and papers, it’s as versatile as it is convenient. And hey, it dubs as a drum set too. Originating from Peru, the square-sided hand instrument is better suited to the complex rhythms of Latin music, and when implemented in 4/4 time, tends to come across as either a rough generator of hip-hop beats or rehashed Third Eye Blind rhythms.
It’s a polarizing instrument for sure, especially in country, and is probably at least partially responsible for the low ceiling Sundy Best has experienced, despite the quality of the songwriting and the infectiousness of some of the songs. Some just see the instrument as amateurish as opposed to understated. Kris Bentley is a quality cajón player for sure. But then again, so is your second cousin, and that Rasta guy two doors down. It gives off a unique sound profile that some just won’t find appealing in country.
But at this point, the cajón is part of what defines Sundy Best. It’s a party to an approach to center the song as the focus of the music. And along with other tasteful production throughout Feel Good Country, this is successfully accomplished in an album that some will proclaim as one of the best written affairs in 2023 so far, as well as hereafter.
8.2/10
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February 13, 2023 @ 9:09 am
I fell into the category of getting “flipped out by the opening title track.”
I’ll give the album another shot after reading this review though.
February 13, 2023 @ 9:16 am
Yeah, it’s absolutely nothing like the rest of the album, and though it kind of makes sense as a silly/fun introduction after you’ve listened to the whole album, I have no doubt there is a host of folks who would otherwise dig on this album, but won’t get past it.
February 13, 2023 @ 4:22 pm
Id say the album artwork also misleads. Fantastic album not all to different than both artist solo work.
February 13, 2023 @ 9:25 am
Well I’m sure Hank 3 would agree that good Country needs cojones… 🙂
February 13, 2023 @ 11:02 am
Was hooked from the first listen. This will be a album of the year contender for me I believe or will at least be high on my list come December.
February 13, 2023 @ 12:23 pm
Sure am glad the rest of the album isn’t like the title song! Really nice listen other than that song.
February 13, 2023 @ 12:39 pm
Any album that puts a full 90’s S10 on the cover automatically gets put on my good list.
February 13, 2023 @ 12:54 pm
Once i was reassured by the rest of the album, i find the opening song kind of fun and tongue in cheek. Really solid album, may bit be my AOTY, but will probably be one of my most listened to.
February 13, 2023 @ 1:10 pm
I’ve been out on the Olympic peninsula working and a coworker turned me on to an open mic out there I’ve gone to a few times. The first time a cajon player just jumped into my set and did a killer train beat that sounded like a brush snare. I had him join me last time as well, it was pretty cool and definitely not latin sounding. This sounds like a cool album.
February 13, 2023 @ 1:43 pm
One of the best things that happened to Sundy Best was going back to their roots of just Kris on the cajon and Nick with the guitar. When they got signed and forced to do a full band they lost what made Sundy Best. Definitely a solid album and glad the boys are back even if this is more of a side project these days.
February 13, 2023 @ 3:59 pm
I root so hard for these guys, man. They’re the same age as me, grew up in the same area, and moved to the same city (college town) as I did. Their music is a damn near chronological soundtrack of my trek through young adulthood, and Bring Up the Sun will forever be one of my favorite albums of all time.
This album is no different. Reminiscent and introspective, the content kind of picks up where Nick’s “NJ” left off – we’ll shelve the COVID era concept album. I’d probably rank it third in the discography, but they’ve always had a way of hitting me square in the gut with songs like “Winding Through the Woods”. Glad to know it’s not just on account of my bias.
FWIW, Nick has claimed in the past that JTE’s “Midnight at the Movies” partly inspired the duo’s sonic direction in the early days, so that’s at least partly to blame for the cajon based simplicity.
Thanks for shining a light on this one, Trig!
February 13, 2023 @ 6:36 pm
I’m going to guess by what you wrote, you probably also spent several nights watching them at Redmons too
February 13, 2023 @ 6:39 pm
Just thought about it, but that time frame in Lexington 2010-2014 was wild in hindsight. Sturgill was playing the Dame with Sunday Valley, Fifth on thr Floor (Justin Wells) was around still, Sundy Best at Redmons, and Tyler was just getting started and playing Green Lantern and Al’s. Not to mention Arlo was playing the area too.
February 13, 2023 @ 8:04 pm
Haha brother, that entire “Drunk Right” video was my life during that time frame.
“Our neighbors like wine.
We like beer.
Need a few more hicks like us ‘round here.”
That is pretty wild to think about.
I want to say they had already bulldozed that block with The Dame on it for Centerpointe by the time I got to town in ‘08. I did catch SV at Cosmic Charlie’s around 10/11 though.
Sad to admit, I didn’t catch the Childers train until he was already selling out The Burl in the post red barn/pre-purgatory days.
Up until a few years ago, you could catch Arlo sitting at the bar at Lynagh’s on any given weekend.
Wells is still around some. He just opened for Lucero at The Burl a few weeks ago.
February 14, 2023 @ 7:20 am
This album is kind of hit and miss for me. There are some good songs here, and some good sounds and vocals, but the drums/beats give many of the songs a video game sound. For a band that has several albums, this one sounds a bit amateur. A few of the songs remind me of early Muscadine Bloodline and the stuff the would release online. Their vocal styles are similar.
Overall, I think it’s too hard to get past the drum sounds for me to give this much of a lasting listen.
February 14, 2023 @ 9:08 am
Good lord, that first song is awful. Why would anyone open an album with something like that?
After that, not bad!
February 25, 2023 @ 9:59 pm
Is this going to be available on CD?
October 12, 2023 @ 3:36 pm
Putting these two guys together is similar to putting together a combination of spices that create amazing flavor. The individual spices are good by themselves, but when you combine the spices together, it hits different. Try it, you might like it, or love it.
October 29, 2023 @ 2:39 pm
Last year I built a wooded drift boat in my yard. I stumbled onto Sundy Best and listened for many hours while working. I’m from Kentucky but not the mountains and I’m a bit older than Nick and Kris. But we share a theme of making mistakes a little self deprivation and Grace that comes from Kentucky root. I got the boat finished and proudly name here, “Sundy Drifter.” See y’all on the Cumberland below Wolf Creek Dam. Tight lines.