Dylan Earl has the best new album of the week.
Little Big Town
Scattered, Smothered and Covered [EP]
Just dreadful, really. But for the ages-old “Northern Town” cover tacked onto the end, this all foregrounds their most aggressively middlebrow tendencies via production that would make Lady [Redacted] sound lively and hip. Their harmony work can only elevate so far.
Maggie Rose
Cocoon [EP]
Writing is a bit less sharp than on her most recent (and career best) full album, but that’s really splitting hairs at this point, as Rose has really settled into the power of both her writing and, especially, her singing. If only there were still a market for this sound.
Levi Foster
We Made Fire
The low-key, unassuming vibe of this set is perfectly matched to Foster’s narratives, which hone in on the tension between our more primal urges and our need for genuine connection in a very weird modern world. The twang-forward folk arrangements shine throughout, too.
Chase McDaniel
Lost Ones
A year ago, he dropped a paean to bro-country. Now, he’s dropped a paean to “boyfriend” country. He’s a decent enough singer, sure, but his only identity as an artist is, “someone with deeply bad taste in influences and aspirations.” Nothing here to recommend, really.
Madison Cunningham
Ace
The closest she’s come to a full album on which her unimpeachable technical chops– she is an uncommonly sophisticated composer, especially in the contemporary folk space– are deployed in service of her narratives instead of just being meticulous for their own sake.
Dylan Earl
Level-Headed Even Smile
His best yet, and it’s important to have someone who sounds a whole lot like vintage Hag writing and singing songs about being “a little bit queer,” the direct impacts of public policy on actual rural folk, and, above all else, empathy. He fully meets this moment here.
Emily Ann Roberts
Memory Lane
On the cusp of a years-overdue mainstream breakthrough, where her technical gifts as a singer and writer are needed. But the extent to which she embraces downright antediluvian tradwife tropes on some of these otherwise catchy, polished songs sure is a bummer.
Adam Mac
Southern Spectacle
Delightful. Even when a few moments sound oddly like JC Chasez’s solo stuff, he leans into both his drawl & his deep understanding of camp such that it still works. His messages of radical self-acceptance within the country space couldn’t be more timely or powerful.
Billy Currington
King of the World
“Love Done Gone” remains his fluke moment of transcendence; the title track here’s his best single since then, though, which carries some weight, and the rest of this mostly affable set is above his rather middling career mean. Maybe his post-charting era will be solid.
Joshua Hedley
All Hat
Multiple concurrent truths: I appreciate his sharp and accurate jabs at the authenticity fetishists, but I wish this album felt less like an expertly-curated museum exhibit. Still, it’s as well-produced and skillfully performed an album as I’ve heard in 2025, and often a lot of fun.
I really appreciate these helping to make me aware of released I might have missed. I love Maggie Rose and hadn’t been aware she had new music out and Dylan Earl is a great discovery.
I’d give Joshua Hedley’s ALL HAT somewhere between 4 and 4.5 stars. As you said, it is a lot of fun and expertly produced and executed.
I feel like Maggie Rose has come a long way since the dreadful one-two of “I Ain’t Your Mama” and “Girl in Your Truck Song”.
Also, is it too late to bring back Wayne Kirkpatrick to Little Big Town? They clearly got the best results with him.
Oh, I thought her whole Margaret Durante era and quite a lot of her subsequent run– that Kings of Leon cover? Please.– were pretty terrible. Which has made these last few releases all the more pleasant a surprise, honestly. I’m always happy to hear that an act I’d written off took a turn for the better.
In contrast, there goes LBT. Fully agree that they should reunite with Kirkpatrick. They’ve done some good work with Joyce, but I honestly haven’t liked more than an isolated single or album track they’ve put out since 2012.