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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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Playlists

March Playlist on Spotify and Apple Music

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March didn’t start out strong, and for awhile, I wondered if we’d actually be able to make a worthwhile list at the end of the month. But I held out hope for the later releases, especially the March 30th albums that promised to bring us a ton of great music. And yeah, I needn’t have worried; we were blessed with great music from Courtney Marie Andrews, Kacey Musgraves, Lindi Ortega, Red Shahan, Ashley McBryde…and the list goes on. It’s as good a time as any to check out all of these artists. This has been our most diverse playlist so far, from the traditional, almost bluegrass selection by Vivian Leva to the rock anthems of Red Shahan, so there should truly be something here for everyone. As always, many thanks to Zack for supplying this on Spotify.

Apple Music users can follow me there @countryexclusive for access to all our playlists, as well as updates to the Saving Country Music top 25. For March’s playlist,
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Reviews

Album Review: Palo Duro by Shotgun Rider

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Rating: 7/10

With so many great and important albums coming out last Friday and things happening behind the scenes for me personally, it was going to take serious motivation for me to actually add another record to my list, at least not to a list of stuff I’d actually get to anytime soon. Maybe the debut album by Texas country group Shotgun Rider would go on the never-ending back burner, ready to be pulled out on a slow release week in the future. I had no intention of actually getting to it quickly–and then motivation came swiftly for me when I heard that the lead singer sounded vocally like a more polished Gary Allan. For one, that’s a really specific comparison, and for another, Gary Allan has one of the most distinctive voices in modern country music, and imagining a more polished, less gritty version of his unique tone was intriguing. I put on Palo Duro, and indeed, it’s as if the lead singer, Logan Sanford, were the love child of Gary Allan and Mike Eli of the Eli Young Band. Fans of either of these vocalists should check this out. Since I am a fan of both, this immediately had my attention, and it turned out to be a really solid Texas country debut from Shotgun rider.

Just like Red Shahan’s album, this record is named for a landmark in West Texas, in this case the majestic Palo Duro canyon stretching for miles across the Texas panhandle. However, unlike Shahan’s record, this album is a more polished blend of country and rock; rather than rugged grit, this album goes for a smoother, cleaner sound. Also, where Culberson County is a record for thinking, this one’s a record for drinking, representing the lighter, Aaron Watson/Josh Abbott side of Texas country. This relies on strong hooks and catchy melodies more than hard-hitting lyrics. That’s not to say there aren’t some smart lyrics here, but they’re not really the biggest focus with this music.

But there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with solid, hook-driven music; in fact, Americana could use more of it. It provides a nice balance between deeper albums whenever it’s done right, and this record is most certainly done right. It’s a hard album to write about because there are only so many ways to say this is solid, and you can’t really analyze the lyrics all that much. But these songs, though not especially outstanding lyrically, are enhanced by Sanford’s vocal delivery, by hooks that quickly stick in your head, and by melodies which just make much of this album infectious.

The production goes a long way to separate this from other similar albums as well. It does a great job blending the classic sounds of Texas country, with equal parts crying steel and screaming electric guitar. Most of these tracks are also built around minor chords and/or darker keys, so there’s an element of seriousness to songs that might otherwise be lightweight. “Texas Rain,” probably the strongest selection here, does an excellent job building throughout the song to convey the storm of emotions this narrator is facing, as he can’t help but love a woman who comes and goes just like the West Texas rain, never staying long enough to actually provide relief. And sometimes, it’s just the passion and sincerity of Sanford’s delivery that makes a song work, like on “Lucky Him,” as the main character laments the fact that his ex is finding everything she ever dreamed of with another man. George Strait is cited as one of this band’s main influences, and that is evident here in this track, which sounds like a modern version of “You Look so Good in Love.”

As mentioned, the lyrics are secondary, but for the most part, they are solid. This is a debut, and it’s a strong one, but Shotgun Rider can certainly improve their songwriting on future releases since most of this doesn’t really go deeper than the surface. Still, except for the last three tracks, the writing works well enough. It’s on these last three, and particularly on the closer, “The Night Don’t Love You,” that the writing really becomes a liability, and this serves to end a really promising album on a bit of a whimper.

This is not a record that’s going to blow you away or give you some profound new revelation about life. But it works well for what it is, a hook-driven slice of modern Texas country music. We need more albums like this providing energy and stepping up to balance out the great songwriting efforts by other artists. We need more music like this to prove you can make a good album without being especially deep or artsy or making some grand statement. In a perfect world, this is the kind of music we’d be championing in the mainstream, and in that fantasy world, it would do well. Really strong debut, and I’m excited to see where Shotgun Rider will go from here.

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