A quartet of four star efforts lead the way this week, courtesy of Lily Meola, Carin León, Brad Paisley, and Allison Russell.
Lily Meola
Lucky to Be
An assured, cohesive debut album following a few years’ worth of singles and EPs, this announces Meola as one of most gifted of the many, many talented Gen-Z women who ought to be wrestling control of the country mainstream from the Wallen acolytes and Pledge Week bros.
If her songwriting POV isn’t quite as distinctive as theirs just yet, she’s nonetheless in conversation with Willow Avalon and Carter Faith for how she draws with purpose and clarity from a deep well of genre influences without being overly beholden to notions of traditionalism. Her songs and performances move.
It’s no surprise then that she’s impressed Nelsons Willie and Lukas and Jamey Johnson, all of whom collaborate here, while creating a persona and style that only intermittently draws parallel to their work. She shines brightest when nodding to her native Hawaiian culture, a path for future growth.
Dailey & Vincent
Beautiful Life
As technically perfect as their albums always are, and without any real lapses in quality control as they close in on two full decades as the premier duo act in modern Grass. Still, there’s little here to distinguish this album from their earlier efforts.
The Malpass Brothers
Satisfied: Country Gospel Classics Live
Their best records make a point of doing interesting work within a genre throwback aesthetic. This collection of covers of familiar gospel standards is traditionalism for traditionalism’s sake. It’s fine, but they’re too talented to be reduced to rote cover bros.
Gary Stewart
One Track Mind
Another example of how he’s always deserved so much better than he got, this collection of previously unreleased vault recordings doesn’t always capture him at his formidable best. Compared to the Don Williams record, lovingly curated and produced; this is overlong, messy.
Shania Twain
Little Miss Twain
Subject of such misogynist dismissals and underestimation in her imperial era, she deserves all due credit and respect for the singular talents, POV, and sound she brought to the genre.
But her late-career music just… isn’t good. Lyme Disease has ravaged her voice to the extent that she’s lost any quality control over her tone and pitch, and lyrics that might’ve scanned as playful thirty years ago now just come across as either juvenile or tryhard. A couple of tracks pop or at least threaten to, but the majority careen wildly among different styles.
Maybe she has the goods for a “Confessions II” style legacy sequel / genuinely great statement of identity and purpose in her at some point, but she hasn’t given any evidence of that to date. Unfortunately, most of this record is just dreadful.
Hudson Macready
looks that follow [EP]
Noteworthy only for the fact that it’s rare that This Exact Guy only gets an EP instead of a full-length album, so perhaps a tide’s turning? Otherwise, there’s no telling him apart in one single way from four years’ worth of banal, genre-averse white (guy) noise.
Carin León
MUDA
He’s back to his genre-blurring best on most of this set, which pulls traditional Mexican forms into a range of contemporary country, pop, and R&B settings with a real panache. It’s the quiet numbers that showcase his legit great singing, but “En La Misma Cama” is a banger.
Brad Paisley
Tacklebox: Disc 1
As a collection of odds-and-ends, this is missing the thematic heft of his best albums, but it’s vintage Paisley on a song-for-song basis. Which means not every joke lands, but there’s a real mastery of structure and narrative, backed up by technical skill.
How this fits into an overall release strategy remains to be seen, as he’s now two years removed from the unfulfilled promise of the “Son of the Mountains” project. The reasons why Music Row turned on him aren’t subtle, but he’s still putting out quality work in what should be his legacy era.
Rodney Crowell
Then Again
His assessment that this set wasn’t quite up to the standard of the career-reviving triptych he’d recorded prior to this now-unvaulted record was correct. But would that others had such lofty expectations, since this is still awfully good in trademark Crowell ways.
Various Artists
Old No.1 Revisited
I really love the idea of this format for a tribute record– and what a record to pay tribute to, obvs– a lot more than I love the actual execution of the individual tracks. As is often the case with this kind of project, the performances are a mixed bag.
Brad Tursi
Colorado
Not as consistent as his predecessor, but it still remains utterly astounding how much better he is solo– and how much more clear an identity he has– than he is as part of Old Dominion. But as long as his day job allows him to make records this solid? Carry on, sir.
Rita Wilson
Sound of a Woman
She’s always had a pleasant enough voice, but she’s never had an identity as a recording artist beyond, “Rita Wilson wanted to make an album.” This pairing with Dave Cobb doesn’t really change that, despite a clear feminist throughline in the uneven songs collected here.
Hiss Golden Messenger
I’m People
The sincerity of the sentiments and the loveliness of the arrangements remain as singular as ever, but some of these attempts at timely political observations are just far too on the nose. His writing’s always strongest when he focuses inward, which wasn’t the aim here.
Allison Russell
In the Hour of Chaos
Joined by a tremendous group of collaborators, Russell makes a joyful noise on this set, with lilting melodies set against a cacophonous vision of Americana. If not her headiest work, there’s still depth in how she argues for the necessity of escapism in trying times.
Re. Shania Twain: I wholly agree that she was such an unfair target of misogynists; and even though she was not necessarily a favorite of mine, as is the case with Taylor Swift in this day and age, her mass success was no accident. But if your voice is as damaged by Shania’s was by Lyme Disease, it is no shame to admit it. And if you’re totally honest, as Linda Ronstadt showed after her singing voice was silence by Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, you don’t go on doing this with a subpar voice simply out of pride because it’s not fair to either your fans or, really, to your legacy (IMHO).
It’s a tough one, because Johnny Cash found a way to reinvent himself with a completely changed and weathered voice and I’d even say the same for Joni Mitchell to a much lesser degree, but I do agree that Shania has not found her sweet spot with her current voice. It’s very sad, because her previous music sounded so effortless while her recent music sounds so strained and it’s generally painful to listen to. Then again, the thing that Randy Travis has been doing, touring with James Duprey singing his songs, seems quite odd and sad to me. I can see how it’s very difficult to let go once your vocal abilities have deteriorated so vastly, but I also think we can’t feel obligated to still embrace somebody’s music if it’s just not good anymore. I do kind of like Shania’s duet with Tanya Tucker though.
As I said below, I’m not completely turned off by the album (a ringing endorsement if ever there was one lol), but I can also acknowledge that there’s definitely a “labored” quality to her singing now, to the point that sometimes it seems uncomfortable for her.
Re: Little Miss Twain, I worry when CU syncs up so closely with that “stronghold” of trad country Saving Country Music (don’t get me started on that site), but I have to confess, I went back and listened to Twain’s last two records so as to remind myself and also temper my expectations as far as her voice goes(Now is actually a little better than I initially remember, Queen of Me not so much). I…don’t mind this record. Granted, not everything hits, and it’s certainly not anywhere on the same plane as those imperial era, Lange-produced albums. But it’s hard for me to knock her voice too much–granted, I’m no expert on “pitch” or “tone” the way Jonathan is–when you have folks like Moroney singing the way they do without the benefit of an actual reason as to why they’re so awful. That’s to say, I probably enjoyed the album more than I suspect alot of critics did.
Good discussion, all!
There are definitely multiple concurrent truths when it comes to Shania’s new music.
Is it admirable that she put in the very real, very difficult work to recover her ability to sing at all? Absolutely. Is her new voice compromised in ways that exacerbate her technical limitations and that are difficult to work around via production choices? Also yes.
Do I hope that she has at least one last “That oughta shut everybody up” kind of a late career statement album? Sure do. Do even the best songs on this new record fall into a category of, “There’s an idea here, but the execution’s off?” Yep.
Take the title track, for instance. There’s an honesty to the narrative that has some real meat to it, and the addition of Tanya Tucker was welcome. But the lyrics are far too repetitive, which dulls their impact over the course of the song, and the production leaves the issues with her vocal tone and some flubbed notes too exposed.
That said, even in her current state, she’s not as technically poor as Moroney, but that’s about the lowest possible bar to clear.
The “stronghold” is only ever really on my radar when someone sends a screenshot of how the one and only commenter we’ve ever banned here in 22 years brings us up in the comment threads because he cannot let it go, or when there’s an article that’s disparaging to / inviting harassment of writers whose work we respect.