The perfect balance between familiar and accessible, and involved and thought-provoking. This is country music at an elevated level that belies Addison Johnson’s otherwise underdog status.
“Banks of the Trinity” finds Cody Johnson exploring much more contemporary, radio-friendly sounds as opposed to sticking to the more traditional sound his fans have become accustomed to.
Never losing touch with the heavy emotions and hard choices so many of the people in his own audience are weighted down and faced with, BJ Barham and American Aquarium deliver an impassioned, propulsive, and potent experience.
“Feet On Fire” feels like an especially inspired and more original work from Mr. Chapman. It feels more personal, more intentional, more in line with the best works from artists like fellow Georgian Brent Cobb, or maybe Marcus King.
It feels like you can’t spit these days without hitting a new neotraditionalist. But that doesn’t make the songs of the meteorically-rising Mack Geiger any less impressive. He doesn’t just have the style and sound, but songs that yearn for something.
Where to land on Midland might have just as much to do with your mood that day as it does with the band and the music itself. But it’s hard to stay mad about them when listening to their new album “Stages.”
When it comes to an album that you can set to play, leave it running and repeating endlessly that will fill a home or a happy road trip with nothing but mood-enhancing moments, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better replacement to “Sun of Amen.”
Within the songs and verses of ‘Signs,’ others might also find a path through questions, travails, or difficult times in their lives, or be inspired to take their own journey of personal discovery and enlightenment. It’s not ‘just’ a country album.
The Red Clay Strays are American music. And most any genre should want to claim them as their own since they immediately up the ante of talent among it. The Red Clay Strays also can’t be anything but themselves.
Coby Acuff goes full-blown Outlaw on ‘Handmade Horsepower,’ laying grooves down, giving into two-tone beats, featuring a little phaser on the guitar every now and then, and getting outright mouthy about the ills of the music industry.
Herein lies what might be one of the greatest Western-inspired albums released in this year, or frankly, in many other years. With his debut album produced by Dave Cobb, the young-in-age, but old-in-soul…
All of these songs sound like Don Williams, and despite their orphaned history, still present a really strong effort, and one you’re more than happy to receive since it’s a Don Williams gift from beyond.
Kaitlin’s first original single after signing to Republic Records is absolutely everything you want from a Kaitlin Butts song. If anything, it utterly defines who she has been throughout her career.
He sings with a deftness nearing the angelic, allowing the stories and messages to stir the inner soul of his captive audience, resulting in an experience difficult to impossible to achieve through other conventional means.
On this album, he’s not trying to be Waylon or anyone else. He’s just trying to be Whey. And if that’s not good enough for a modern world that often settles for the trendy or familiar, that’s not going to sway Whey.
The story of William Alexander doesn’t start way out West. It starts way Down Under. But the wide open spaces, the horse, tack, fence, and cattle, the hard-working days and the lonesome nights are no different no matter the hemisphere.
49 Winchester can do what many other artists and bands can. But few artists and bands can turn around and do what 49 Winchester does. That’s because they don’t have Isaac Gibson.
There’s something about the songs, the voice, and the visage of Ryan Bingham when he’s at his best that evokes the grandeur and imagination of the rugged American experience in a uniquely compelling manner.
Any and all rebuttals against declaring that we’re in a full-throated traditionalist revival are rendered weak and ineffectual after a spin through this Braxton Keith record.
Bobby Dove once again creates a vibrant and enriching listening experience that reminds you why you devote time to digging deeper than the surface to discover the best stuff.
If Ashley isn’t blowing out your speakers with flamethrowing chainsaw guitar, she’s drowning you in a torrential downpour of waterworks with a power ballad. Even the more hushed moments come with intensity.
It finds Musgraves understanding the moment country music is in, leaning into her traditional country influences, and deserves to be a retrenching of her as one of the top women in country music.
You see Dale Watson standing up there on stage in your local honky tonk with his pompadour, popped collar, sliding in and out of Lone Star jingles like a pro, and you’d swear he gives up nothing to all the old greats.
Rachel Brooke has never been more country, her voice has never been showcased so exquisitely, her songwriting has never been so sharp and clever, and the music has never been so complimentary as it is on her new album.