New releases from Willow Avalon, Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band, Austin Snell, Girl Named Tom, Redferrin, Haylie Davis, Jobi Riccio, Vandoliers, Andrew Sa, Caleb Caudle, Lori Rayne, and Midland.
Willow Avalon
Pink Pocket Pistol
What she accomplishes withthis sophomore effort is precisely what all-timers The Chicks and Miranda Lambert accomplished with their second albums: A dead-on assessment of what did and didn’t work on the debut and a refinement of what did work, executed with clarity and purpose.
And like the genre’s greats, she understands the importance of a fully-realized persona and why that matters infinitely more than “authenticity.” The first-person details she peppers throughout these larger-than-life narratives are wholly believable because of the singular voice she uses to tell them, not because of some exegesis of who any specific line is really about.
It allows Avalon to build a character over the course of these songs, and that character is one of the most brash, unapologetic, and self-aware the country space has seen in the mainstream-adjacent space in ages.
Joined by collaborators– Midland, Kaitlin Butts, Jason Isbell– who absolutely get it and are in on every joke, Avalon is a woman who owns her shit and is utterly exhausted by everyone else’s. She can tell a no-good SOB that he’s got “Work to Do” because she’s already done the work herself.
It also matters that she has a deeper grasp of country as camp than anyone in the genre since Laura Bell Bundy. And, like Bundy’s, Avalon’s humor won’t land well with the people she’s punching (up, always) against, and she’s self-assured enough to be unbothered by that. But she’s taking aim anyway.
Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band
Time
Foregrounds his calypso, reggae, and Dixieland jazz influences for the first time in a minute, which is always welcome and makes for some killer arrangements. But the songs on this collection are, charitably, a mixed bag. Still, he performs the fire out of them regardless.
Austin Snell
Colors [EP]
The third time– to my complete surprise– that I’ve reviewed music by this exact This Exact Guy. He starts here with an interesting song about generational trauma that gets my attention for the first time ever, but then he immediately reverts back to Pledge Week Country mid.
Girl Named Tom
Dust to Dust
Sibling trio, apparently winners of The Voice which has never once mattered, imagine a slightly less comatose Lady [Redacted] with slightly better singing. Faintest of praise, that, but there’s just not much else here to justify a strong reaction either way.
Redferrin
Been There Done That
Trendhops onto the “slightly more traditional” bandwagon, and a few of the arrangements and engineering here are actually quite solid. Still, the lyrics and attempts at both singing and rapping remain such liabilities that this feels like it’s hitting his low ceiling.
Haylie Davis
Wandering Star
The exhausting Olivia Rodrigo discourse dictates that I, a mid-40s white guy, only like this record by a Gen Z woman because it scans in a specific rockist way. What I like
most about this record is how unafraid Davis is of super twangy arrangements.
This doesn’t scan as greige Americana or even alt-country so much as it foregrounds some straight-up trad country signifiers in ways that many of her peers avoid.
But I also can’t not comment on how, yes, Davis’ vocal tone, timbre, and phrasing recall precise alt-rock women, and that’s great, too.
At times, this sounds like the proper country record that Nina Gordon or especially Tanya Donnelly (!!!) always should’ve recorded. Davis is a tremendous singer, in other words, and in ways that are unique in today’s country space.
And like other Gen Z artists– Rodrigo, for sure, but also Carter Faith, Willow Avalon, and Braxton Keith here in the country universe– she draws from a deep well of influences without being overly beholden to those influences in ways that are derivative.
Davis’ savvy and skill impress far beyond the discourse.
Jobi Riccio
Face the Feeling
At times, the lack of a consistent aesthetic actually works well with her not-always-linear but always-captivating lyrical style. Other times, it makes the album sound like she’s second guessing a few things. Riccio doesn’t need to do that: She has all the goods.
Vandoliers
Afterglow [EP]
Opens with a clear-eyed mission statement, then backs it up with four tracks that find this crew at their sweaty, rowdy best. If it’s too brief a set, hearing Jenni Rose snarl, “Grab my purse and my gun,” as she hits the ground running is still such a 2026 mood.
Andrew Sa
American Rough
A truly auspicious debut that queers a slew of different genre conventions with a real sense of purpose and clarity. Sa cut his teeth in Chicago’s cosmic country scene, but his overall style might better be described as cabaret country. Kid’s a crooner in every sense.
To that end, his vocal tone and heavy vibrato, fittingly enough, actually recall early ANOHNI in some of the best moments, to highlight how immediately singular a sound he’s created here.
A few moments skew perhaps too far into pastiche, but Sa is onto something compelling and is one to watch.
Caleb Caudle
Heavy Thrill
Plenty good already, Caudle levels up on this set, which plays out in every meaningful way like an early Rodney Crowell record. Which is to say he’s an empathetic, humanist songwriter and a sneaky-great singer. And he’s got a bit of a sardonic streak, too.
Lori Rayne
I Don’t Drink [EP]
“To Be Country” is a word that the rest of this too-brief EP doesn’t fully live up to, quality-wise, but we’ve been impressed with Rayne for a while now. She does modern country-rock– think Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde– very well, and her husky alto is just a wonder.
Midland
Stages
Not a knock against them that they remain far better at choosing quality songs than at writing those songs themselves, and this is perhaps their most consistently curated album yet. They even turn in a credible SteelDrivers (!) cover, and authenticity fetishists can stay mad.
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