Album Review – Ty Smith & The Minor Offenses (Self-Titled)

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#550.7 (Red Dirt) and #510 (Traditional Country) on the Country DDS.

If you’ve already composed your “Best of 2024” list, you better have done it in pencil and not ink, because Ty Smith & The Minor Offenses out of Oklahoma will be butting in line here momentarily and demanding to be at or near the top. Along with becoming your next favorite band, you’re about to be stupefied that Ty Smith recorded and released this self-titled album all when he was only 16-years-old.

Forget being ahead of his time. On his debut album, Ty Smith laps dudes twice or thrice his age in maturity and insight with the songs he presents. He then delivers it all with a voice that might not be whiskey soaked and put away wet, but it’s plenty well-seasoned and perfect for this kind of country music. Meanwhile, the musical accompaniment and arrangement is exactly what you want. It’s just a little moody and dark with some Red Dirt rock tones. But overall, it’s unapologetically country.

There are two main avenues that we’re witnessing younger performers travel down in their effort to make an impact in country music. There’s the earnest songwriters following the lead of Zach Bryan, and the neotraditionalists taking an approach similar to Zach Top. What’s so compelling about Ty Smith is he’s like a combination of these two. The music is strikingly country with plenty of steel guitar and fiddle, but the writing is very vulnerable, raw, honest, and forthright.

This isn’t “tear in my beer” country music full of timeless sentiments or trite clichés. This is “rip your heart out of your rib cage and stomp on it” country. Not only are you stunned when you check the birth date on this young man’s ID, you’re similarly gobsmacked when you see the liner notes and realize he wrote most all of these songs, and by himself aside from a few co-writes.



You take a song like “Baton Rouge,” and it reminds you of the best of early George Strait down to the faraway sound of the fiddle, and the way Ty Smith evokes geography to make you feel the heartbreak in the song. “Words I Should Have Said” sounds like something Evan Felker would compose, while the sound gives you Turnpike Troubadours vibes in the best of ways.

Ty Smith favors the minor key, which might take some warming up to, and the best songs on the album seem to come in the second half, including the excellent “Lost and Found.” With all the deep and broody moments, when Ty’s duet partner KC Johns appears in the song, it hits you like a ray of sunshine and sounds sublime.

Though this feels like singer/songwriter country first, there’s just enough attention paid to making sure this music comes with an infectious and accessible element so it’s not too heady or temperamental to limit the audience. Ty Smith & The Minor Offenses is ripe for exploding as soon as the word gets out, and Ty Smith is able to tour beyond the Oklahoma region.

From Sand Springs, Oklahoma just outside of Tulsa, Ty Smith has already played opening slots for bigger artists, and notable venues like The Mercury Lounge. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before the world wakes up to him, and the future of Red Dirt and traditional country finds its next star.

1 3/4 Guns Up (8.4/10)





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