Tami Neilson towers over the competition this week.
Tami Neilson
Neon Cowgirl
A travelogue about all the ways America can break a heart and, more significantly, about how to find the mettle and resolve to emerge stronger on the other side of that heartbreak. Neilson wisely sets this to a survey course in vintage American music styles.
There’s rockabilly, honky-tonk, Southern gospel, golden-era country, and stately cabaret pop, and every bit of it is of a piece with the overall aesthetic Neilson’s peerless catalogue. Here, she doesn’t just evoke the iconography of “Americana” in her lyrics– though that Neon Cowgirl looms large.
Instead, she demonstrates here, on a record that is often the twangiest of her career, a foundational understanding of what “Americana” can and should sound like. In that sense, the album is brilliant in the exact way Cowboy Carter is: Creation through reclamation as a means of finding peace.
Jesse Welles
Pilgrim
In form and content, this is distinguishable from the album he dropped in late February only by the Strings and Ferrell guests spots. As ever, the songs without the strident “I’m a Principled Centrist” posturing are far more interesting, but those aren’t the ones that go viral.
DK Harrell
Talkin’ Heavy
Newcomer’s brand of contemporary blues is perhaps a little too studio-polished for my personal tastes, but there’s no doubt he’s a major talent. The quality of his vocal tone is particularly impressive. This debut sets the foundation for a rich career.
Landon Smith
Reckon So [EP]
DCountry’s never-ending Pledge Week continues. This one of This Exact Guy has one of the better ears for a melody and one of the more dreadful Zach Bryan type singing voices, and there’s a tinge of misanthropy in his lyricism that’s both noteworthy and troubling.
North Mississippi All Stars
Still Shakin’
And praise be for that, really. As always, they’re masters at laying down a groove and letting it ride over a genre-spanning terrain. Their skill and good vibes make it tempting to overlook how some of these songs are under-written to the point of minimalism.
The Wandering Hearts
Déjà Vu (we have all been here before)
They’re “folk” in the vintage folk-rock festival sense, and they are quite skilled at imitating a precise CSNY/Mamas & Papas aesthetic. A covers album was inevitable for them, perhaps, but it draws attention to how derivative their style is. Nice harmonies, for what it’s worth.
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