Miko Marks leads the pack this week with her best album to date.
Brothers Osborne
Watertown
A tight, sharply focused set that hones in on matters of youth and young manhood and how that history shapes an adult POV, and with hooks for days. Most every track sounds like a hit in a better timeline for the genre’s mainstream, a point the “Disc 2” of singles edits drives home. If the terrific collaboration with Cody Johnson — his and TJ’s vocal tones sound great together– can’t get them at least another top 25 hit, that will be indicative of Music Row putting them out to pasture, the reasons for which are obvious. Start-to-finish, their best album in a decade.
Jesse Daniel
Looks Like Rain
Of all of the many artists mining this vein of Buck x Hag aesthetic traditionalism, Daniel hits his own high ceiling as both a singer and lyricist with the greatest consistency. And credit to engineer Andrija Tokic that this is one of the year’s best sounding records.
Blake Proehl
Heart’s Don’t Break [EP]
This iteration of This Exact Guy apparently did a brief stint in the NFL, which is the only thing notable about him. We’ve reached the point that the kids who grew up on Bro Country are now making records of their own, and what we’re not going to do is engage in any revisionist history, as I’ve already seen some rumblings of, that Bro Country Was Good, Actually.
These songs show the exact same belligerence toward reflection and personal growth– the Fuck You, I’ll Never Change And Don’t Need To ethos of that era– and the mile-wide streak of misogyny wherein women are reduced to lists of superficial signifiers instead of viewed as fully realized humans with interior lives that matter. And it’s set to pedestrian hip-hop beats that he half-raps over like Robin Thicke affecting a drawl.
We’re not doing this again.
Mae Estes
The 90’s Called [EP]
She’s been terrific for a while now, and here she lays bare the influences that made her that way. Skip the opening title track, which is a little too, “This essay is about…” of an intro, and get right to the ace covers. Unimpeachable taste, with the skill to execute.
Coby T. Helms
One For the Losers
Much like Emily Scott Robinson, Brit Taylor, and Nathan Evans Fox, this relative young’un has created one of the year’s most compelling records by digging deep into Appalachian heritage with a real sense of narrative specificity and a fundamental belief that the stories and the people of this region matter. The sharpness of his writing might not be quite on the same level of those other artists– and the flourishes of High Lonesome in his singing will always make his voice an acquired taste– but his empathy and his wit put him fully in their elite company.
Cassidy Daniels
What Have I Got to Lose
The more rock-leaning production on her modern pop-country is a perfect match to her missile-launcher of a voice– a massive, warbly contralto that makes her an immediate standout. Some further refinement in her songwriting, and she’s a world-conqueror.
Belles
Midwestern
This upstart’s at her best when her charm attack comes across as effortless; on a few too many of these tracks, that charm comes across as forced or overwritten (like the “Jolene” sequel). But she’s a terrific singer with an ear for a hook, so this is all upside, really.
Miko Marks
Hell or High Water
An album of what Ray Wylie Hubbard has long been singing about as “down home country blues,” which is less of an aesthetic pivot for Marks than a natural progression of her sound since she rebooted her career a little more than five years ago.
In that short time, she’s established herself as one of the most singular talents in the country space, thanks to her exceptional interpretive and technical gifts as a vocalist and her ability to foreground current political savvy in songs and structures that have deep genre roots.
This album is her finest to date– which clears an awfully high bar– for how the knotty blues arrangements, courtesy of producer Justin Phipps, match the power of her performances and the scope and righteousness of the songs’ narratives. On this record, Marks’ moral clarity as an artist fully aligns with the clarity and conviction of her singing. Coming on the heels of significant personal losses, this record digs deep into matters of resilience, and Marks has never sounded more assured. An essential listen and another example of why Marks remains a genuine treasure.
Zach Bryan
Young Manhood & Other Donatable Organs
His best in quite some time because it’s edited at both the song and album levels in a way he’s rarely bothered to do, and because the production is both his most recognizably country and his most idiosyncratic. He credits his sobriety with positive changes and the music here brings that to bear.
Predictably, his singing is still a mixed bag, as are the collaborations. Evan Felker has to pretend like he can’t sing on key on the (otherwise great) Turnpike track, while the Lana Del Rey duet never stood a chance of being to my liking. Still, a strong effort.
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