Album Review Roundup: Vol. 1, No. 25

Dee White teams up with Tony Brown for an AOTY contender.

Gasoline Lollipops

Kill the Architect

This record smells like the stack of No Depression c. 1997 back issues I have stacked on a bookshelf, and I’m here for it. They’ve never stitched their patchwork influences together as well as they do here: The seams never show, even at the band’s most ragged and frayed.

Rob Williford

Johnny & Jenny

A record that fully justifies the choice to do his own thing after years of strong work as Luke Combs’ guitarist. The instrumentation here is consistently stellar; the songwriting, less so. But the songs that hit? They really do wallop on narrative and thematic levels.

Ashley Campbell

Goodnight Nashville

The specific affectation in her vocal performances doesn’t always match the mood of her melancholy, pensive compositions here, but she remains a unique talent in the current Nepobaby pool. One of the year’s best produced and engineered records, for what it’s worth.

Grant Gilbert

West of Fort Worth [EP]

Like Hudson Westbrook, who shows up here on a gross collaboration (“Bad Reputation,” not a Joan Jett cover), he has a base level of competence that makes his flavor of DKE Country slightly better than Zimmerman and Wetmore; the title track would make for a strong single.

But there’s also a lot here that makes text out of the problematic subtexts– particularly the foundational misogyny– in how this specific college XP is getting coded as “country.” Only 8 songs here, and one’s a dead-serious Gretchen Wilson cover, which sure says a lot, none of it good.

Lizzie No

Commie Country

An entire mood for the current cultural moment, this live album captures the breadth of No’s extraordinary gift for narratives that hinge on deep connections. Her band impresses here, too: “Lagunita” hits even harder than before, and they nail every genre pivot.

Dee White

Heart Talkin’

Who better than the legendary Tony Brown to take a generational talent like White and put his extraordinary gifts in the precise right context? His Auerbach-produced debut succeeded in spite of its producer; this record soars because of Brown.

That’s to take nothing away from White’s simply peerless vocal talents or his ability to weave Deep South vernacular into thoughtful, empathetic lyrics. Unlike so much of the current 90s country boom, every track on this actually sounds like it would’ve been a chart hit during the 90s. A star turn.

Parker McCollum

Parker McCollum

Is “seller’s remorse” a thing? That’s what this album sounds like: McCollum continues to work with Music Row’s stable of hired-gun songwriters as his star ascends, but he’s stripped down the production values to try to lean back toward his Red Dirt roots.

The result is an album that tries to avail itself of Nashville’s resources while also seemingly trying to reject that very same machine, and most of it just ends up exposing the very real limits of his skill set. His persona is a prickly one, and this isn’t likely to win him friends in TN or TX.

Hayden Pedigo

I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away

Instrumental records in the country and folk spaces can be a hard sell, but Pedigo’s technical gifts truly shine here. The precision of the performances is a marvel, as are the nuanced, layered arrangements. Niche comparison to John Vanderslice for the sound quality, too.

Vandoliers

Life Behind Bars

Leans harder into both their punk sneer and their country twang than ever before, and hallelujah. This kicks open cage doors with a sense of ferocity and purpose, and it’s a career-best record from an outfit that was already flying awfully damn high. Tremendous.