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Album Review: Down Low by Wes Youssi & The County Champs

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Rating: 8/10

It’s a strange state in which country music finds itself in 2018. You swear it’s dead and gone, the music of a forgotten and simpler time. The mainstream has gone pop, and many of the radio stars wouldn’t know a steel guitar if it fell out of the sky and hit them in the face. You find authenticity and substance in Texas and Oklahoma, but much of that music is a hybrid of country and rock. You seek it out in Americana, and find great music there as well, but in the end, it’s still not the sound you miss. When you do hear someone make a “classic” country record, it’s so hell-bent on being old-fashioned that it sucks the beauty right out of the discipline. Then you find a random Internet comment from someone about a band from Portland, Oregon, and you stumble upon the most country thing you’ve heard in years, and you realize it’s not dead after all, you just have to know where to look.

Wes Youssi & the County Champs haven’t been affected by any of those trends in the mainstream or in Texas and east Nashville; they’ve just calmly released a staunchly country album. To all those people who want their country music to be forward-thinking and genre-bending, this may not be the album for you because it’s more a reimagining of styles than a reinvention of the wheel. It’s soaked in steel and layered with fiddle, and Wes Youssi sounds like he could have emerged from the earliest days of country music, both in his tone and his phrasing. It’s three chords and shuffling beats, and flavored with a rockabilly influence at times to give the band a unique sound. It’s like you just walked into an old country bar and heard this record coming out of the jukebox.

But at the same time, it’s not bogged down by outdated language or by a labored effort to sound retro. It’s modern in lyric and timeless in theme, it just happens to be delivered in a throwback style. That fresh approach is sprinkled all over the record, but it’s never more apparent than in “Green dream,” where the character in the song starts growing weed to make his living–“in these hard times, the treasure’s under your feet.” A song like that would have never come out of classic country, and even today, it wouldn’t have come out of the South so naturally as it does out of Oregon. And there’s passion and life in this material; you can tell Wes Youssi has a passion for these songs and stories, not just for the traditional sound itself. This is the record I wish I’d had on hand when I heard Joshua Hedley’s album because this puts a record like that to shame and explains perfectly what I struggled so hard to make sense of with that project–I wanted to like it so much, and stylistically, it was excellent. But it lacked the passion and freshness Wes Youssi brings to the table here–a record like this isn’t a copy of the old styles, reimagined for the sake of nostalgia and irony, it’s proof that those old styles can still be relevant and relatable in 2018.

Another problem with some of the more traditional records I’ve covered in the past two years is a lack of energy. Some recent examples of that would be Vivian Leva and Kayla Ray’s albums. Although I enjoyed both, I can understand how some may find those records a bit sleepy. Down Low can hardly be accused of that distinction. It’s full of upbeat moments, from the infectious title track to the catchy, more rockabilly “Cadillac Man” to the bluegrass-influenced “Southbound Train.” The band seems to understand the desperate need for upbeat traditional music like this, as displayed in the closer, “Champ Boogie,” where Wes Youssi laments the number of girls standing around in bars and clubs looking for romance, but with “hardly any dudes that wanna dance.”

There’s a humor and wit in these songs that is missing in a lot of modern country. That’s best exemplified in “crazy Train.” The song tells us of a dysfunctional marriage–they’re always yelling and fighting and breaking dishes. But in the end, they are right for each other; he advises: “Let’s talk about what we do right. we sure as hell can start a fight. And when it comes to old-time lovin,” all we need’s the moon to get goin’.” He also resolves to use paper dishes from now on.

This classic, throwback style isn’t going to be for everyone; even among the more country fans, it’s going to be a bit too unpolished and rough around the edges for some. This is for the people who like a little more grit in their classic country, and it’s fresh enough to appeal to some of the more progressive listeners as well. It’s the record I’d show to people who enjoy good modern-sounding country, to show them this traditional style isn’t archaic and outdated, that it doesn’t always sound as lifeless as many think it is, and that it can be fresh and fun in 2018. It’s an album that could turn those fans onto this sound and to older music. Just a solid, fun, replayable collection of traditional tunes keeping the sound and spirit of country music alive and well.

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Reviews

Collaborative Review – Rhyan Sinclair – Barnstormer

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This is one of the most fun collaborations we’ve ever gotten to do because we were able to discover a new artist together and fall in love with her music right from the start.

Conversation

Megan: So this is cool, we’ve got a debut record from a 17-year-old songwriter from Kentucky. Lots of cool songwriters coming out of Appalachia these days, so you definitely have to check something like this out. And it’s great when we get to talk about debuts, because it’s not only about that album, but also a brand-new artist to love. So what jumps out to you about Rhyan Sinclair herself? Why should people check her out?

Brianna: Well, she’s got a very distinctive sound. Rhyan Sinclair reminds me of Miranda Lambert vocally. More than that, though, she is a very good writer. You definitely can’t tell she’s so young by these lyrics. They make her seem a lot older, and these songs are very real because of that. You feel many different emotions in this album, that’s for sure.

Megan: The voice hit me too. The tone is sort of similar to Ashley Monroe and to Clare Bowen who played Scarlett on Nashville, but you’re right, the other night when you said Miranda, it hit me. I can definitely hear that in her accent and her phrasing. Like early Miranda, from Kerosene and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. To that end, we both found some vocal imperfection in it. You forgive that because she’s 17, and she’ll certainly have time to develop.
As far as the writing, yes, she definitely impresses me. Some of those lines are just outstanding. I agree about the variety in emotions and tempos, although I tend to prefer her slower songs. I do think it’s cool that with such a soft voice, she still does the up-tempo stuff and does it well.

Brianna: What I found most refreshing about the varied tempos on this album is how, for the most part, there’s a slower song and then a faster one. It keeps things from dragging. I like her faster songs quite a bit better, but it’s true that a lot of the slower songs are quite deep and emotional. In short, I think she’s good at whatever tempo she chooses.
I do agree that there are some vocal imperfections, but I’m really excited to see where she goes from here. Once I got past all of that, I really got into this album.

Megan: Based on that, it sounds like our highlights will probably be different. So what were some of yours?

Brianna: I think my favorite song was “The Hourglass.” I loved how the lyrics tell of making the most of the time you have, and yet that time still flies by. It’s life. I don’t think it gets more real than that. I really liked “Barnstormer,” too. Sure, the theme of being a wanderer has been done before, but I like this song because she talks about the ways people see someone like her. I also really liked “The Sad Song.” She says she’s writing it because that’s the only way she can really get her feelings out. That’s got to be true for many songwriters, I’m sure. “Retrograde” is really good too, because she’s tired of being under the weather, as she says. Skeleton Sam” was a really good example of a fast song about a darker topic, I thought. In this case, the subject of the lyrics was a ghost. It’s not often that a singer can sing about something dark at such a fast tempo and make it work, but Rhyan Sinclair does. Finally, I quite liked “I Can’t Sleep.” Again, not being able to sleep do to having things on our minds is something most, if not all, of us have had to deal with at some point.
What were the highlights of this album for you?

Megan: “I Can’t Sleep” was easily my favorite. There’s something so beautiful about the melody of that song that really goes with the lyrics and makes something special. I also liked “Kentucky Night Sky,” and it went well in the track placement after “I Can’t Sleep.” “Selfishly, Heartlessly” was a really nice breakup song; I love that line: “you’re selfishly, heartlessly doing just fine,” something we can all relate to, that we wish the other person was hurting as much as we were. “Barnstormer” and “Free at Last” were my two favorites in the faster category, but mostly, I liked the slow stuff. And I love the way she hits high notes almost out of nowhere. We talked about the vocal imperfections, but the way she can just soar to all these beautiful high notes, even singing them softly as opposed to belting them out, is just effortless and makes those songs and those moments better to me.

Brianna: I do agree with you about that line in “Selfishly, Heartlessly.” She’s got a way of making you feel empathetic, and like the experiences talked about in these songs are ones you can relate to. And as for her vocal ability, I have to agree that she does a great job with those high notes. She’s very subtle about them, and that makes them all the more impacting.

Megan: Yep, you’re right. So I think this is a really strong debut, but I do think it could have been better. I’d have like to have seen it trimmed from 14 songs to 12, and then more time could have been spent to polish it up. Like we said, there’s vocal imperfections and things, and she’ll definitely have lots of time to develop, but it does feel like it could have been a little tighter. We’d probably disagree about what songs to trim because “Retrograde” was actually one of my least favorites, but I just think it would have been better a little shorter and handled with a bit more care.

Brianna: I agree. If a couple songs had been trimmed, I do think the whole album would have been more solid. This, along with some vocal imperfections and a few times where I found the production a little weak, are my complaints about this project. Still, the writing is just too good overall, the tempos keep this from being boring, and Rhyan Sinclair has some very well-done singing moments on here. I’m rating it a very solid 7.

Megan: I’m really excited about this artist. I always love finding something new and fresh and cool to talk about, and Rhyan Sinclair is the kind of artist that makes this outlet fun. I love her voice, the tone and especially all those lovely high notes–we don’t have enough country women nailing notes in the stratosphere like that, that’s very impressive. Her potential as a writer is there in spades as well. I do think the album feels a bit too long and a little rushed in the production aspect; they could have taken some more time here to really polish up some of these songs. But what a great debut record, and Rhyan Sinclair should definitely be on your radar. 7.5 from me.

Brianna: I completely agree, we need more artists with this kind of vocal range. I’m excited to see where Rhyan Sinclair takes her music next. If you’re looking for a new traditional female country artist, look no further than Rhyan Sinclair and Barnstormer.

Ratings

Megan: 7.5
Brianna: 7

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Reviews

Album Review: Josh Ward–More Than I Deserve

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Rating: 7/10

For a long time, I couldn’t think of how to write about this album. It’s not a masterpiece lyrically, and it’s not reinventing the wheel sonically. But like Randall King and Shotgun Rider have already done this year, Josh Ward delivers a solid, lighthearted album that calls to a specific time period in country music. It took me awhile to put my finger on why I enjoy this record so much, and the answer is astonishingly simple: it’s the sound that I love, the 90’s country where many like me find their nostalgia. We’ve got people like Joshua Hedley and Zephaniah Ohora trying to recreate and, in the case of Ohora, modernize the 50’s and 60’s styles, bringing the countrypolitan sound to the modern ear. We’ve got countless people trying to keep the 70’s outlaw era alive, to the point the term “outlaw” has been run through the ringer, and the music is often almost a parody of itself, and we’ve got others pushing the envelope in modern country in order to create something forward-thinking that still respects the roots of the genre. But until recently, there haven’t been many people embracing the 90’s neotraditional sound, and that’s ironic and unfortunate when you take into consideration that so many of the listeners and fans who loved that style are the ones who divorced themselves from the mainstream in the last decade because they miss those country sounds. The 90’s and early 00’s are when so many of us came to country music in the first place, and it’s a shame that more people haven’t been carrying this sound forward into the present.

I am certainly one of these people who grew up on 90’s country, and I miss that style more than I can say. Brianna heard this album before me, and she said that I’d like it because Josh ward sounded like a “twangy Travis Tritt.” I’d heard ward before but hadn’t made that connection, and she was right. And maybe that explains my enjoyment of this album–it’s so refreshing to see this sound being embraced in 2018 and not forgotten or relegated to the realm of nostalgia. You have no idea how much you’re missing this style of country, or how much it’s needed in modern music, until you hear it come through your speakers like a long-lost friend.

It’s not just that it’s embraced by Ward, though, it’s that he interprets this sound so well and makes it sound fresh and natural in 2018. It’s impossible not to smile at “Home Away From Home,” a fun little ode to his favorite bar that would have been a radio hit in 1996. “Another Heartache” features some lovely piano as Ward sings of not wanting to complicate things with the woman he met tonight on the dance floor and wants to make sure they’re on the same page about where this is going–“I don’t need another heartache, so baby, let’s don’t fall in love.” “Say Hello to Goodbye” is another in a long line of country heartbreak songs, but it’s also a reminder that some of them don’t need any analyzing and are just simply good songs. The same goes for the steel-soaked “One More shot of Whiskey.” As mentioned, you aren’t going to be blown away by the lyrics of this project, but it’s just so solid and comforting. I said this about shotgun Rider’s Palo Duro, and the same thing applies here–it’s not a record for thinking but rather a record for drinking, and we absolutely need both.

There’s one lyrical exception, though, which offers some real depth, and that comes in the album’s crown jewel, “The devil Don’t Scare Me.” This one is also a heartbreak song, but it’s told from the angle of the narrator having once been scared of God and petrified in church pews as he heard about hell and fire and brimstone, but now that she’s left, nothing, not even the devil or death, can get to him. “I ain’t afraid of dyin’ ’cause I lost the one thing I was livin’ for, the devil don’t scare me anymore.” This one is certainly the highlight of More Than I Deserve and is the one you should check out if you only pick a single track. This one’s also featured on our May playlist.

This is not some groundbreaking masterpiece, but it’s not a groundbreaking masterpiece you want playing while you sit around drinking with friends on a Saturday night. It’s a record like this one, and this is why we do need both, and why not everything has to be a piece of musical genius. Josh Ward brings us a solid, uncomplicated slice of 90’s style country music, and if you need that sound in your life, definitely check this out. Good, comforting, refreshingly country record.

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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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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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