Monthly Archives: June 2018

Reviews

Album Review: Erik Dylan–Baseball on the Moon

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Rating: 6.5/10

With midyear lists in the works and the amount of new releases slowing down some after a ridiculously crowded last several months, it is time to clear a few albums from the 2018 back burner. This Erik Dylan record is one that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for over a month now, and I’ve had about a thousand different opinions as I kept listening to it. But unlike so many albums and songs these days that fade into the background after a listen or two, this record held my attention, and I kept seeking words for it despite my conflicting thoughts.

This is an album that has much to say and can be a lot to take. If you thought BJ Barham got too political on Things Change, you probably aren’t going to be into this record, at least not all at once. We’ll hear about immigration, racial tension, America’s justice system, the plight of American farmers…the list goes on. It’s not that any of these songs are bad–in fact, we’ll get to just how good some of them are–but as an album, it can be a bit overwhelming. Dylan should be commended for addressing these issues, though, and singing about what he believes is right.

Often, however, the album’s best moments come when there’s a break from the political nature. “Someday” and “Ain’t my Town” make a great moment together and showcase the unique importance of track placement, as the first features a narrator who’s fed up with his one-horse town and wants nothing more than to get out, and the second sees the narrator lamenting the stereotypes of small-town America all over the radio dial and embracing his home. It’s a cool contrast and yet a perfect way to explain many people’s feelings about their hometowns–they’d love to leave and chase bigger dreams, but at the same time, it’s home, and to hear anyone else criticize it is blasphemy. It’s great to hear this duality expressed so well in these two songs. “Touchdown Town” also adds to this story later on the record, as its main character can’t fit into the football-focused town and has to get out and pursue his dreams of a career in music. “13th Floor” is another strong non-political moment on the album and speaks of the hurts and failures and demons we all carry with us and keep hidden in our minds, on the “13th floor,” a superstitious and haunted place where all those bad memories dwell.

As for the political and social commentary, as always, it is best when telling a story or discussing specific characters. For example, “Funerals & Football Games” works so well with its story of factory workers being laid off after years of employment because it speaks to the mentality of this character that grown men can’t cry–unless, of course, if someone’s dying or his son’s scoring a touchdown. “Flatland Sunrise” stands out as a highlight, as the narrator stares up at the cruel summer sky and prays for God to help him keep his family’s land. “Honest Work” details an immigrant coming to America alone and just trying to find work and raise enough money to send back to her family; it’s not preachy, but rather more of a story, and when you get to the part about how your grandpa or some other ancestor came here in the same way and was welcomed with open arms, you can’t help but feel the plight of these people in a new light.

It’s songs like “Color Blind,” where the message is too transparent, that really don’t add much to the record. “Color Blind” is a more transparent, less thoughtful “White Man’s World,” even down to the reference to his child; “The world is on fire” did this also, in fact, although it was more about the election in general than one specific issue–and it just doesn’t add much value. It’s certainly the right stance to take, wanting to rid the world of ridiculous and unfair biases based on race, but it’s just not executed well at all.

The other problem with these types of songs is that while many are great on their own, it can be draining to listen to them all at once. To reference “White Man’s world” again, that song was so effective partly because it was a rare political moment on an otherwise apolitical album. The best political and social commentary doesn’t alienate half its audience, but rather seeks to bring people together and foster dialogue and understanding between all sides. It’s why “Black Jesus” is such a brilliant song, for it shows that less is more and calmly makes its point without calling people out. Baseball on the Moon is not really a divisive record, but with all these songs all together, it’s a bit of an unapproachable one for some listeners. That’s a shame because the majority of these tracks are pretty great on their own. Listen to “Honest work,” and it’s a great, thoughtful tune; listen to it as the thirteenth track of a heavy, politically charged album, and it loses some of its value as a song that speaks to people.

This is why it’s been so hard to write about this album, and why even now, assigning a rating is really tough. Taken individually, many of these songs are quite good, and if you like this type of material, you’ll definitely enjoy this album more than I do. But if you don’t like politics, it’s probably not the album for you, and you’d be better off checking out specific songs. It’s a record where the songs themselves are worth more than the sum of their parts. and yet, it’s precisely because of those songs that Baseball on the Moon needed discussing. You’ll know who you are if you’re going to like this record, and for the right audience, there’s much to enjoy here.

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Reviews

Album Review: Sugarland–Bigger

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Rating: 4/10

Okay, so am I the only one who actually used to enjoy Sugarland? I’ve seen such an outpouring of hatred toward this duo leading up to this album that it seems like everyone has always hated them. I enjoyed their first two records, and indeed, I still play Twice the Speed of Life frequently. It was their third album, Love on the Inside, where things started to turn toward more pop and less substance. That record was uneven; I enjoyed about half of it. Then “Stuck Like Glue” infected the airwaves, and that has to be one of my most despised songs ever, including anything any of the bros have ever released. Their breakup felt inevitable and almost overdue, and yet now we’re looking at Sugarland 2.0 several years later for some inexplicable reason. This record isn’t horrific, but it proves that the dying embers of Sugarland should have never been revived.

They could have gone back to what made them popular and likable in the first place, but of course that isn’t the case, and this shows them doubling down on the pop direction that hindered their last two records. Understand, there’s nothing wrong with pop country, and there’s nothing wrong with pop music as long as it’s not incorrectly labeled–but whose idea was this to take Jennifer nettles’ undeniable, sometimes even exaggerated to the point of annoying, twang and pair it with pop beats and electronic elements? No one is going to make Katy Perry try to sing like Loretta Lynn because it would sound absolutely ridiculous; you can’t take a good chunk of this album seriously with Nettles’ traditional country twang trying to fit into pop music. It doesn’t sound natural, and more than that, it doesn’t sound flattering to her at all.

The writing is often incredibly generic and bland as well–I already wrote about how “Still the Same” is supposed to be this great comeback song, and it just ultimately says nothing. “Babe” takes unapologetic advantage of Taylor Swift by giving her a few syllables and allowing her name to make this song a talking point, assuring its success on country radio. Say what you want about Taylor Swift, but she’s a great songwriter and a smart businesswoman, and there’s a reason she left this off Red. She realized that it was subpar material for her and wisely chose not to cut it. It’s got the makings of a good song about a woman’s reaction to finding out her man has been cheating, but again, it’s just so generic in its execution. “Bigger” and “On a Roll” are two of those incredibly upbeat, optimistic numbers that make for bland, boring filler which add nothing to the album, and as if “Stuck Like Glue” didn’t already prove she couldn’t do it, Jennifer Nettles makes the latter track insufferable by rapping. With that twang, she may honestly be the worst rapper I have ever heard.

There are some really lame attempts to get political with this album. The problem with songs like this is that often they’re just too vapid and shallow to say anything of actual importance. “Bird in a Cage” seems to be about hypocrisy and forsaking what the church would have us believe, but it’s incredibly vague and almost comes off condescending when it says, “it’s hard to explain to a bird in a cage,” as if the audience to whom this track is being addressed is too stupid to understand it. “Tuesday’s Broken” is cited on Apple Music as a song about gun control–this is not entirely correct, as it paints two different portraits, one of a mass shooter and one of a girl contemplating suicide, and asks if the world wouldn’t be a better place if we just reached out and loved people. It’s a good message, and also one of the more stripped-back, country moments, but it still lacks a lot in the writing. “Let me Remind You” is described on Apple Music is being about women’s empowerment, and this actually made me laugh out loud when I heard it because it is simply a sex song and a boring one at that–I’m not faulting Sugarland for these descriptors, I’m just amused by the attempt of Apple Music to advertise this as some sort of progressive, forward-thinking project when it’s actually so bland and uninteresting.

But there are some brighter moments on this album. One comes in the heartwarming “Mother”–which incidentally is far more empowering to women than “Let me Remind You”–a song that actually manages to go deeper than the surface and celebrate motherhood in a respectful way. Sure, it’s still pretty listastic, but it’s on a song like this where the details and examples work pretty well. “Love me Like I’m Leaving” and “Not the Only” both provide some actual country instrumentation and flavor at the end of the record, and these display Nettles at her best vocally. Both are flattering to her voice, and neither shows her exaggerating her accent. Kristian Bush’s harmony also works much better on these songs, the former depicting a woman who finally has the courage to leave after turning back at the last minute so many times before, and the latter crying out for others who feel the same loneliness and pain in this crazy world.

I’ve heard worse pop country albums. It’s not an offensive or shockingly terrible record, except for the God-awful “on a Roll.” It’s just so colorless and uneventful for so much of this. It’s like almost no effort was made in the songwriting, everything going for the most basic and shallow of sentiments. The sound doesn’t suit Jennifer Nettles in any universe for a good portion of this, and although there are times when you can see flashes of the earliest version of Sugarland, they’re few and far between on this record. Not a horrifically bad album, but an underwhelming, disappointing, forgettable effort that makes me question why we needed a reboot of Sugarland in the first place.

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Reviews

Album Review: Dierks Bentley–The Mountain

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Rating: 8/10

A little over a year ago, after Brad Paisley returned to his natural self on Love and War, I wrote a piece detailing which artists I’d like to see follow his lead and just get back to being themselves. Dierks Bentley was first on that list–right up until Black, he was a beacon of hope in the mainstream, managing to blend the traditional and contemporary sounds and themes in a great way to make him one of the best in mainstream country…then we got “Somewhere on a Beach,” and it all went downhill from there. It seemed that Bentley was selling out, and he didn’t even need to do so–he had carved out his own niche perfectly and was seeing airplay and mainstream success without venturing down this road. He was making an album for the wrong reasons, and that was especially disheartening when he’d been such a strong mainstream artist previously.

With The Mountain, we have seen him return to form in fine fashion. “I don’t care how you buy it, or listen to it. I’m making the record for me,” he said of this project, and that’s not only the right way to approach an album, it’s the way Bentley has always been, and the part of him that took charge when he decided to do something different with Up on the Ridge a few years ago. It’s just a recipe for good, heartfelt music, and that’s what Bentley delivers on this record.

He knew he needed to get out of Nashville in order to make an album like this, and the mountains of Colorado were the perfect backdrop. You’ll hear references to Colorado often, even if the song isn’t about that state at all, as well as to the landscape, and the title track here is all about climbing through the mountains of life one small step at a time. But the thing that captures this album’s mood the most is the production. Just as Marty Stuart set the desert to music last year with Way out West, and Brothers Osborne made Port Saint Joe an album that literally sounded like a weathered, forgotten coastal town, Bentley’s album captures that wildness and beauty of Colorado in a really special way. It’s the way the solos only seem to intensify during the outros of songs; instead of fading out, many times we hear the instruments gain in strength as the songs come to an often abrupt end, running free and uninhibited. “The Mountain” goes out on a wave of fiddles and rock guitars, and the otherwise softer, more sedated “You can’t bring me Down” features some mandolin at the end that just comes alive and takes over the whole thing. It’s all so vibrant and fresh, and it takes you to that place in your mind, where you can imagine the snowcapped mountains in “Gooddbye in Telluride” and picture the stars shining through the window in the record’s one characteristic sex song that has become a mark of Bentley’s career, “Nothing on but the Stars.”

The production, though often this album’s greatest asset, can bring it down at times. “Living,” a song featuring lines about finally noticing the birds on the branches and the sunrise, and celebrating those special days when we feel especially alive, would have been better without the drum loops. “You Can’t Bring me Down” feels too pop-leaning as well, particularly with its themes of ignoring Nashville gossip–you’d think it’d also ignore the more mainstream sounds. And “Goodbye in Telluride” is a really cool song lyrically, as the narrator is begging his girlfriend to wait until they leave that magical place before she leaves him, so that his favorite place won’t be ruined by that memory, but the poppier production just really doesn’t go with this song at all. Sometimes, these songs just needed a wilder feel, like the excellent opener, “Burning Man.” That song just explodes and grows more intense as it goes along, and Bentley and Brothers Osborne, who are featured here, do a fantastic job capturing the theme of the record right away. Incidentally, this song is one of the standouts of the whole album.

In addition to the country rock selections and the more mainstream-sounding tracks, Dierks also provides two ridiculously country songs to close the album in “Travelin’ Light” and “How I’m Going Out.” First of all, thank you, Dierks, for showing everyone in the mainstream what exactly “featuring” means and what exactly it means to feature an actual country woman instead of another pop star. Brandi Carlile absolutely soars on “Travelin’ Light,” a track about laying down your past and burdens, and I know it’s a revolutionary concept, but she’s actually got a whole solo verse! Dierks Bentley should be commended here for doing the right thing and picking Carlile to sing on this song; also, they sound outstanding together. “How I’m Going Out” is a reflection on his time on Music Row and an acknowledgement that one day, his star will burn out. He vows to take this gracefully, unlike many who haven’t–Keith Urban, anyone? These two songs are straight-up, three-chord country, and “Travelin’ Light” even displays some bluegrass influence. Together, they form a nice “f off” to the whole establishment and prove that there is still room left in mainstream country for these types of songs.

Fellow fans of Dierks Bentley, this is the Dierks we’ve all come to know and love. This is him being himself, a refreshing blend of styles, from traditional country and bluegrass to modern country rock, and sprinkling in enough mainstream elements to make him accessible to those fans as well. It’s 90% Colorado and 10% Nashville, in that way that only Bentley can deliver. This is everything you want in a mainstream country record in 2018, and although not a perfect album, it’s a damn good one and one which will have staying power. I can’t stop playing this record, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that 8 looks entirely too low by December.

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Playlists

May Playlist on Spotify and Apple Music

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May was not an extremely impressive month for albums, and this playlist reflects that, featuring a number of songs from stuff we haven’t featured in full. It did produce good albums from Kayla Ray and Jason Boland & the Stragglers, as well as the first 10/10 album for me with Brent Cobb’s latest, so although not as crowded with good releases as March and April, May did give us some good music. There’s a new single from Dwight Yoakam on the list which is always good news. And i know that Hellbound Glory song was released four years ago, but the reissue of their album with additional material gives me an excuse to throw in the excellent “Streets of Aberdeen.” As always, thanks to Zack for supplying this to the Spotify people.

Apple Music users, you can follow me there via @countryexclusive for this and all our playlists, as well as the Saving Country Music Top 25. For May’s playlist,
Click Here

Spotify users, click below.

Reviews

Album Review: American Aquarium–Things Change

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Rating: 8.5/10

As recently as a few weeks ago, I stated on Twitter that one of my controversial musical opinions was my lack of feeling toward American Aquarium. As I noted then, it was never about the writing–that’s always been pretty excellent, and “Losing Side of Twenty-Five” is an absolutely brilliant song that I’ve loved since the first time I heard it. But after seeing them live twice, I was not convinced of them as a band, and I felt like BJ Barham, the lead singer, tended to only sing in one gear: over the top. But we must approach music with an open mind as I said just yesterday, so I took my own advice and went into the new American Aquarium release setting aside all preconceived notions.

That’s partly because so much had changed for American Aquarium prior to this album. The title is certainly appropriate. Every single member of American aquarium had left, leaving Barham to start from scratch. I knew it had taken a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make this record, and more than that, I wanted to hear the new version of the band. After several listens with this thing, I have to say that though I am sorry Barham had to endure all this hardship, the result is a much better version of American Aquarium. It results in an album borne of struggle and resilience, and one that is a truly enjoyable listen.

The writing was always the band’s greatest strength, and this album is no exception. Barham’s songs have a way of feeling at once personal and autobiographical, and also quite relatable. He writes with clever turns of phrase, but never with the depth of some songwriters that sometimes forsakes the ability to connect with the audience. It all feels very real. There’s a track here called “One day at a Time” wherein he speaks of getting sober and trying to make up for the past and the hurt he’s caused everyone, and every word feels like it came straight from his soul. You are pretty much entitled to be impressed by a line like “you see, the man left holding the pen controls how every story ends, and truth becomes a martyr for the sake of the song.” “I Gave up the drinking (Before She Gave up on Me)” is essentially this same song, only told in a lighter fashion. “crooked+Straight,” one of the harder, rock-leaning tracks, is one time where the intensity of Barham’s vocal delivery really works to add to this excellently written autobiographical story. I could go on about the writing for almost every song here, so I’ll just say the songwriting throughout much of this record is just outstanding.

But that’s been the case for American aquarium the entire time. Where this album elevates itself above everything else they’ve ever recorded is in the way they’ve found their sound. They sound like a band more than they ever did before, and more than that, the tracks all seem to have the right production and instrumentation. There are some surprisingly and refreshingly country tunes here, like “Work Conquers All,” a nice ode to Oklahoma featuring some lovely fiddle. As an Oklahoman, I have to say I was excited to hear the little town of Durant referenced, as opposed to something like Oklahoma City or Tulsa which are often the only two cities people from other places can name. There’s accordion all over “Shadows of You,” and Jamie Lin Wilson’s harmony, as it usually does, really adds to this wistful heartbreak song. There are the standard rock songs as well, but these and other country selections provide more flavor and variety to the album. BJ Barham also seems to have found some different gears, doing a better job of holding back on softer songs so that when he belts the harder stuff, it can be more easily appreciated as a sign of emotion. The sound of American Aquarium has just improved in so many ways, and it’s interesting and unfortunate that it all had to come crashing down in order for that to happen.

The song that initially sparked my recent Twitter comments, and the unapologetic album opener, is “The world is on Fire.” the political nature of this may make it polarizing for some listeners, and I do question the idea of making this the opener when the rest of the record, even the political commentary, is more understanding. None of it backs down from its stance, but a track like “Tough Folks” captures the mood of this album better, with the line “Last November I saw firsthand what desperation makes good people do.” There’s an empathy with people who hold different political viewpoints, as well as enough self-awareness of Barham’s own failings, to make songs like this one more likely to connect with listeners than “The world is on Fire.” It’s also really similar to “White Man’s World” from Jason Isbell in that both songs reference their daughters and the anxiety about the world the girls will inherit, but that fosters comparisons to Isbell’s song, which did a better job of being self-aware rather than preachy.

Other than this song, though, I’m really enjoying this record. Much of the songwriting is stellar, and each track gets the instrumentation and production exactly right. Perhaps most refreshing is that out of the hardship and upheaval this band went through, American Aquarium became worlds better. This album is the best of American Aquarium’s career, and it’s all the more special that it’s a product of desperation and turmoil and incredible determination. I hate that BJ Barham went through hell to get here, but it’s often the case that going through hell produces the best and most enduring art. That’s certainly the case here, and indeed, this is one of the strongest albums of 2018 so far.

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