Before the eventual ranking of the best albums of the year, let’s actually talk about them for a change! And in great detail, too! We kick off with a section of country music and rap, the two most maligend genres by the clichéd hipster’s vision of a music listener (although there are far more rap albums to come in later Highlights chronicles, these are the most outlandish picks). Dealing with despair and loss… two genres that, by this point, we all should know, are really not that far apart from each other.
Carly Pearce - 29: Written in Stone (country pop)
When it comes to mainstream country, it’s often difficult to find something or someone that strays away from the crowd. An artist that doesn’t mean to only rely on radio hits, that tries to put out some sort of narrative or at the very least consistent presence in their music, and that isn’t tied to the mercy of their label executives. With that in mind, Carly Pearce doesn’t look like that at first glance, and for the longest time, she wasn’t one to catch a casual listener’s eye; even if her breakthrough hit with Lee Brice, “I Hope You’re Happy Now” was for the most part well-written and well-executed, it rang off as fine radio fodder that more exciting artists outside of the mainstream country sphere could do better, especially when Carly herself is nowhere near an engaging vocalist as other presences right now. It wasn’t impossible for someone like her to do something that was front-to-back worthwhile, but it did require some patience and dedication.
It looks like a conscious effort to write a proper narrative after too many traumatic events happened all at once was the kicker for her artistic breakthrough, which is this album. This time, getting a proper writing and production team on board throughout the whole album and giving it a full, cohesive sense of storytelling (a surprising achievement considering half of this album was released earlier this year as an EP, often a recipe for disaster) gave Carly a stronger ground to stand on in order to put out some tasteful dirty laundry. 29: the year where she got married and divorced. Throughout this album, she tries to do what seems impossible: find a proper sense of catharsis in order to move on, while also never becoming melancholic, regretful or sorrowful. There’s a sense of poise that’s carried throughout most of the album, as to not taint her former lover’s reputation, but rather to emphasize the things she felt missing - a key track of that being the highlight “What He Didn’t Do”, where she decides not to give into the ‘he-said-she-said’ game and simply list the ways in which she felt he came up short. Even when she warns his potential next lover about his moves in “Next Girl”, there seems to be an implication of how she also wants him to hear she was aware of what was going on - she’s not vindictive, but she’s not naive.
The writing, in that sense, shows a lot of character and attitude, but it also means some patches won’t be completely healed - and Carly seems to be alright with that conclusion. She tries to empathize with him on “All the Whiskey in the World”, where she seems to have picked up some traces of narcissism herself after dealing with one, but also understands the rush of alcohol to never face anything too real; after all, unlike in “Your Drinkin’, My Problem”, it’s not her problem as well anymore; he’s only got himself to deal with. She can try to put herself in the position of ‘the other one’ alongside excellent songwriter Ashley McBryde on “Never Wanted to Be That Girl”, where the shame and self-loathing come rushing in. And when it comes to focusing on herself, she evokes the feeling of trying to regain your sense of self on “Day One” with a lot of poignancy, and she certainly doesn’t cut herself any slack on “Should’ve Known Better”, where a lot of the bullets aimed at him hit her too. But the moments of reassurance are just as important; opener “Diamondback” is upbeat, as it shows the sorrows as well as the empowerment of letting go of the things that don’t matter (and giving new values to the things that stay), and closer “Mean It This Time” shows her understanding and realizing her mistakes of the youth and promising to work on herself as well. As much as he may have been the catalyzer for a lot of things, those issues were well established before he showed up.
All of this nuanced songwriting, of course, would mean next to nothing if the compositions and the production (courtesy mostly of Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne) didn’t stand up to the narrative. Here, we’ve got plenty of variety to make this album stand out among many of the most successful country albums of the year. We have the once-again fantastic opener “Diamondback” (co-written by Kelsea Ballerini!) that displays a sense of theatrical drama that the rest of the album doesn’t show, but for those opening 3 minutes, it sets quite a scene; in media res and reflective of the past at the same time, with poignant backing vocals that seal the deal. Songs like “Liability” and “29” show their way of creating self-effacing melodies with contemporary tones that never stray too far from instruments that sound like a proper live band and with an excellent use of percussion. The one contemplative piece on this album, “Show Me Around”, her dedication to her late producer/country pop legend, busbee, is gentle and delicate; there’s never too much going on, focusing on Carly’s vocals where she finally gets to vocally express a lot of baggage that she can’t quite process. But the biggest surprise was the 5 minute long “Easy Going”, with a stronger sense of musical sharpness, with a rough electric guitar that meets a playful fiddle, a moving acoustic guitar, and a hook full of textured backing vocals, that ends with a nearly 2-minute long instrumental jam! By far the most instrumentally developed song on the album, a delight to hear so much color on what’s clearly a deep cut. That’s the kind of attention to detail I yearn for.
In the end, it’s hard to say it’s an album with a lot of teeth to it - the punches feel deliberate and sometimes a tad too thought out, and that sense of poise can get wearying, as you sometimes wish she would pull something harsher. And the biggest aspect holding these songs back is still Carly Pearce as a vocalist, even if she’s learning to express and project a lot more. But when you’re focusing solely on compositions and more focus on instrumental color on a mainstream country album, this is a rewarding listen. It makes it sound like those challenges after something so important ended are easier to get over than they should be, and the suspension of disbelief is both well-landed and, these days, even necessary.
Yola - Stand for Myself (country soul)
At first glance, this looked too easy. Country music with more touches of soul than country, produced by Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys? That’s the kind of easy-going country music that you don’t have to think about too hard, would sweep the Grammys, and get critical acclaim almost by birthright. From afar, it looked exactly like the kind of country project tailor made for those who don’t aim to take country music too seriously. That’s not the music’s fault, though, of course; after all, it’s easy to be skeptical about just about anything these days. What’s not as easy, though, is to shut up and actually fucking listen.
Right out of the gate, you realize what’s going on, and deep down, you realize that yes, indeed, this is going to be an easy listen. But what you also should realize is how much work is being put in so you feel that easiness going through. So much attention to detail and tone (elements completely unknown for the actual Black Keys), with a touch of vintage to make it more appealing, but also grounding it in a strong voice that sings about subjects that are still quite relevant to this day. Yola is the leader of all these sounds on display, and she’s a physically powerful force. The opener “Barely Alive” brings up some purple organ tones and a muddy drum and bass set, and it’s all in a seeming place of tranquility, until Yola, after the second verse, paints the song in a harsh brown color (“When will we start liviiiiiiiiiing…”) that makes every instrument step up their game just so they can keep up with that humble sense of intensity. A similar thing happens in “Diamond Studded Shoes”, a shuffling affair that doesn’t seem to have much going for it, but Yola immediately starts playing with the groove and leads it to a chanting pre-chorus that, only in its second occasion, gets to the soaring hook it deserves. With such a powerful voice at her command, she keeps herself quite in check, never going too far all at once. It’s always a small crescendo.
For all the talk Yola brings in about social injustice and the need to break the system and fight her way through, she never comes off as either preachy or condescendent. If anything, she finds power in theatrical pieces, calls to action that could be danceable, as they physically force you to get up out of your seat, like the wonderful “Break the Bough”, where she ups the ante with her vocals and the ragged horns try to break through the mix before it all breaks down with nothing but that dark uptempo bass… and then everything builds itself back again. The fact that that song is following up the excellent “Whatever You Want” is a statement of good album structure and pacing, as that song leans in far more into a more present sense of urgency, as she realizes she can only do so much, even if it’s in something more personal, like in a relationship. It’s a difficult place to be in, and her melodic sensibilities rise to the forefront, with not a single line wasted, and every iteration of the chorus feels different, more urgent and more frustrated.
In fact, that sense of frustration is one that is quite present in these songs. Songs like “If I Had To Do It All Again” and “Great Divide” feature a sense of longing that don’t mean to let go of someone who’s long gone, and even though the former leans more into the suspense than the latter, that focuses more on the drama, they feature a similar sense of trying to figure out a piece of the puzzle that Yola thinks can’t be solved without that other one. These songs make the soul piece “Dancing Away In Tears” much more poignant and focused, since the farewell of that lover only becomes more accentuated with its groove to fail to save face, and Yola simply fades into the aching melodies and the ever-so-present horns try to elevate those moments of yearning. But whatever sort of facade that song has is completely gone on the lonely “Like A Photograph”, a 5-minute ballad of emotional stagnation where Yola sounds too burdened by her own memories to make something truthful out of them. There’s just hurt, a whole lot of it, and her moments of victory previously displayed on the album feel dismissed as the imminent position of heartbreak completely takes over.
That’s why the moments of ambiguity are the ones that stand out the most. You get “Starlight”, a song with no clear direction regarding where her ambitions lie, and where her love lies too, with an instrumental that’s not uptempo but also doesn’t claim to be a ballad, yet it’s not fast enough to be considered midtempo; it’s the perfect sense of not knowing which step to take next. Yola lets that groove settle in, even if the rusty aspects of the production never stop coming in, and doesn’t let the questioning go unnoticed, as she realizes facing that dramatic sense of closeness might just be what she’s missing. The closer “Stand For Myself” is the closest this album gets to ‘outlaw country’, what with the stalking acoustic guitars that later crunch their way through (here’s where you can tell a blues producer is behind the board), and Yola’s acknowledgement of the pain it takes to properly build your own definity and build your own voice is a moment not of victory, but of vindication. It’s too trapped in its own state of mind to get tainted by a sense of true happiness; it’s a rare empowerment song that focuses solely on the struggle, and the drama built in the instrumental demonstrates that too. But she reaches the wonderful conclusion: she’s alive! Her crescendo is a fantastic exercise in vocal restraint that stands out because you know she could go further if she wanted to, but she finds power in showing less.
All of this to highlight one of the best songs of the year, a truly powerful anthem, an ode to racial understanding and empathy that doesn’t beg, but holds its hand, because it knows asking for help can be just as hard as accepting it, which is “Be My Friend”. Accompanied by friend and collaborator Brandi Carlile on backing vocals, Yola’s melodies are anthemic and powerful, and the imagery, simple as it may seem, resonates specifically because of its familiarity; “Won’t you be my friend out in the rain?”, followed by a small change in scenery, “Won’t you be my friend out on a rainy day?”. The instrumental never rises too much so the dam breaks, Yola’s voice cracks at times and it only makes her more endearing as a result, and the composition is universal; beyond country, beyond soul, beyond americana. It’s a call to action that resorts to gentleness instead of force, and while that might not always be the way, when you find the personal is deeply political, a different approach needs to be utilized. Yola understands that, and all these fights will resonate and feel like breakthroughs from now on.
JPEGMAFIA - LP! (experimental hip hop)
The mere idea of JPEGMAFIA has just been exhausting to me, and his music only confirmed that. Putting aside his mixed early work in the 2010s, his 2 breakthrough albums from 2018 and 2019, the ones that properly put him on the map, felt like unfocused jerkfests made with the interest of memes and 4chan addicts in mind under the guise of ‘experimentation’, while in reality, between every decent or creative musical idea, there was a boring veneer of snotty pettiness towards his audience I could never stand. Any sort of ‘message’ he would try to communicate would be buried under layers of deflection, irony, a pointless amount of distortion, or a combination of all 3 of them. A creative mind who could never seem to get his mind right. I would still check out what he was putting out, but it always left me cold and indifferent - intentionally ‘off’ beats and flows that evocated nothing. Saturation for the sake of it.
LP!... is kinda more of the same, in terms of aesthetic. The tracks are still for the most part short, the shock value is still there, and Peggy’s ego can become insufferable. But the tides have changed. This time, there seems to be an actual focus on tones, melodic ideas, some level of gravitas in Peggy’s performance, and more direct flashes of lyrical bravado that held more weight than before. His last work with mainstream label Republic, also mixing in some beef with Armand Hammer’s Elucid of all people, and a general statement of ‘fuck you’ to those who didn’t ‘get him’ (myself included there!), LP! resonates in its pettiness and catharsis far more than ever before. For the first time since he blew up, Peggy seems to have a proper sense of aim, which means that, while the more introspective moments of previous projects are gone, so are the goofier or ‘ironic’ moments that held them down. This time, every second matters. The stakes are different.
This time, for the last time with the aid of a full budget, JPEGMAFIA decides to take all of his haters, naysayers and enemies, those who would bring him beef, and display his full arsenal not only as a rapper, but as a musician. Before even addressing how he masks away Elucid for not being as real as he is, or using shock value in order to bring his abstract poetry a deeper sense of meaning (criticisms that are, frankly, surface level at best, and hypocritical at worst), he strips him down just by flashing off how much of a better sonic eye he has than the people Elucid works with. LP! is intensely colorful and bursting, constant flashes of neon and grey splashed with a sense of depth to the drums, this time nowhere near as distorted as before, that make the ground shake. That, alone, puts him above everyone criticizing him - especially Elucid, whose instrumentals have been lacking in his latest projects - and, for once, has him project proper honesty and self-confidence when it comes to displaying his bravado. His lyrics rarely sum up to more than bare flexing and making puns, but vocally, he displays a stronger sense of tenacity than ever before. To put it plainly, he’s just on top of every aspect of his music, and he rules them all.
It’d be easy to simply list off all the excellent moments in production here, because there are simply too many. But it’s important to notice how they tell a story alongside JPEGMAFIA’s sense of vengeance in his lyrics and vocals. He takes the more ‘online’ aspects of SoundCloud rap (his forté) on tracks like “DIRTY!” OR “TRUST” where he mixes in plastic synths with a stronger sense of kicks that drag the song down so it sonically has to constantly get back on its own feet. His usual presence of vocal pitching and sampling to the point where they become menacing is still here, except this time it’s only sharper, like on “BMT!” or the superb “HAZARD DUTY PAY!”, one of the few moments where his lyrical shots stick out a hell of a lot more - saying “Why does your black feel like business to me? / Industry lies never line up on screen” on top of Anita Baker going “Sometimes we feel pain” is certainly something that resonates deeply. Something’s not adding up, and as his vocals get trapped in the mix, the music becomes a hybrid of sorts, of different kinds of ways of analyzing sound. Every element feels incredibly crossfaded, and nothing can escape.
Besides his rapping, his R&B leanings have caught a wider sense of pathos and empathy as well. Since he’s got the power to heavily interpolate Britney Spears’ “...Baby One More Time” on “THOT’S PRAYER!”, already an introspective piece with its gospel sampling, he’s gonna use it, and he recalls those with power who didn’t stand up for him when they could have during crucial times - his loneliness is still killing him, inside. He features Tkay Maidza on “THE GHOST OF RANKING DREAD!” on a borderline psychedelic beat with a blurry synth that only gains some footing because of the heavy drumming, and he can’t seem to break away from his need to beef but also can’t let go of his own ego, and an interesting contrast comes from that, especially with an ambivalent guitar not knowing where to go. Other than that, the first half of “TIRED, NERVOUS & BROKE!” is a tad too repetitive, but the second half, a jam session with Kimbra, is incredibly melodic and touching; just the two of them singing in a piano with a mic far away from them, and the stress from being in the spotlight comes out to the forefront; it almost feels like too intimate a moment, where we weren’t supposed to hear it. After so much putting on a brave face, Peggy finally shows us something through his world of mirrors.
But Peggy is naturally an angry figure, lashing out at everything going against him. So, when he comes out blazing, everyone gets bruised. “🔥” features one of the best uses of percussion of the year, an entire section of poorly acoustic trash being played like a snare, and it portrays that lack of polish intensely well, and when it’s not being supported by that, the same plastic horns come in and swoop in as they mix along with Peggy’s impeccable maniacal keys, even as they look for peace. “REBOUND!” is possibly the bluntest song here, where his bravado is at its clearest, and his lashing out becomes even more succinct than ever before (“All that shit that you did to your girl / I just wish that you'd do it to me / He told me to stop dissin' his kin (Huh?) / Oops, I did it again!”, one of the few times his lyricism reached the implications he always tries to achieve). But also the AWE-inspired “END CREDITS!” (placed as the 4th track here - beautiful) comes out of nowhere and leaves as quick as it came, but it leaves its impact - a generic arena rock track being played out of a gas station somewhere while Peggy raps off-beat for some reason.
Perhaps the most noticeable moments on the album are the instrumental passages, with no rapping from Peggy himself. “NICE!” combines a primal mantra (“I PUMP IT UP! (PUMP IT UP!) / DON’T LET ME DOWN! (DON’T LET ME DOWN!)” with skittering acoustic guitars that never seem to quite fit in with the moment of catharsis the sampled vocals are trying to achieve - it’s a moment of screaming into your pillow while everything else collapses. And the interlude “💯”, a chopped-and-screwed retroactive homage to Young Dolph, is intensely moving; Dolph’s voice being pitched down to the point where they become unrecognizable, and a bass in front of your body while celestial keys are played from different corners of the club… it feels like the moment where everything goes out of sight, and now it’s all foggy and confusing. You only attach yourself to some half-remembered words from a rap song you once heard. Peggy at one point on LP! says, “I only rap out of spite”. I believe him. And considering how much he raps here, there’s a lot on his mind he couldn’t let go of. We can only hope this final moment of staring into those powers that be and sending them to hell did something for him. It’s gonna dawn on all of us at some point that we need him; let’s just hope that, when we do so, he won’t need us.
Dave - We’re All Alone In This Together (conscious hip hop)
Moments so grim they can’t be captured in snippets or brief moments of lyrical poetry; they need to be sprawled out and carried out until every final word is uttered, the situations can’t simply be explained. Dave is no stranger to long lengths and long stories, and this hour-long album with just 12 songs could feel almost like routine by this point, considering his previous projects. But no, this is different. This time, we see Dave affected by the burden of his success while everyone else, his entire country, is being brought down by powers he can’t control, and he mentally tries to focus inward instead, and also ends up falling apart.
This is, like a normal Dave project, a pretty somber listen, musically. Lots of dour, sour pianos carrying the midtempo beats that never get to have a proper sense of shine or light to them, there’s always an undercurrent of misery, but one that’s too accustomed to itself to notice it; in a devastating way, to quote Stevie, ordinary pain. This time, however, the pianos themselves feel a lot more lush and intriguing, as they don’t just simply carry a melancholic Dave throughout a track. We’re All Alone in This Together sees Dave working heavily with James Blake, and while that usually can be some sort of turnoff, this time, Blake feels committed to understanding the lack of conclusions the instrumentals need to give to the table, and songs like the dramatic “Three Rivers” or the numb “Both Sides of a Smile” feel like proper moments of teamwork and mutual aid - in a way, Blake hasn’t feel so connected to a project since his debut in 2011.
All of it to, once again, carry the specificity of Dave’s words, that never seem to dial themselves back. The opening thesis of the album, “We’re All Alone”, helps explain why the album title isn’t as bleak as it may look; Dave gets to find a moment of communion by way of mutual isolation. Once everyone’s like this, this alone, this beat up, this traumatized, there’s union in that, and he understands that quite well. That’s why he doesn’t back down on understanding the trauma that comes with England banishing and neglecting the immigrants, the people it needed to reshape the country, on “Three Rivers”, and his pen is stunningly accurate. That’s why the constant use of the 20:1 ratio as it takes on different meanings on “Twenty to One” feels so poignant, because every way of looking at that statistic becomes present and futile, especially because he knows, despite all the privileges he’s been given, he’s still a young black man from Nigerian parents living in England.
In a move that may sound like repeating earlier mistakes, yet is actually a step up from PSYCHODRAMA, the middle part of the album, focused on tremendous Afrobeats production that tackles lighter issues, like his romantic side or his increasingly changing love life, is just as welcome a breather as it was last time, as the tracks become shorter and the features get to interact with Dave a lot better (something that, besides Griggs, doesn’t quite happen in the posse cut “In the Fire”). Yet, Dave’s learned how to thematically connect all these themes, and so these fine love songs that can work well out of context come to a much more frightening end on “Both Sides of a Smile”, a two-parter where Dave allows himself to be overtaken by an actual female voice, who calls him out on his negligence (and then fades out into the background, as if she were another voice calling out his name, a very Kendrick move), and then moves into a long verse from Dave, one of his finest, a moment where he tries to reconcile how fame and success don’t get to heal just quite everything, and yet he reaches the bleak conclusion that his “luck’s been running out”. He’s 23.
The 10 minute long almost-closer “Heart Attack” is certainly a painful listen, mostly because, despite its long runtime, Dave never rises in intensity or volume; he always stays in that monochrome voice that’s too jaded to actually react to what he’s seeing, he can only detail it with painstaking detail. When the music drops and Dave is left a capella, it almost feels like a formality, since the music’s lost all sense of purpose but to carry Dave’s words, and since he can already do that by himself, well, what’s the point? He realizes his violent tendencies and how they come about, or where he thinks they come from; he passes once again through his white envy and poverty as a kid, that still remains to this day, even if he’s one of the most famous stars in England; he doubts his own sense of faith, like a curse that can’t be lifted; his riches only serve to bring him down and carry him into a pool of self-loathing that breaks his back; he calls out those who can’t realize the glorification of horrible lifestyles unless it’s told through black stories (“'Cause when you're black, everything gets scrutinized / That's why they call it ‘urban’, it gets euphemized”, about damn time too); he goes through all the prisons he visited and more; and he tries to reassert black identity by not falling into the cycles of despair the rest of the world seems to have fallen on. But it’s a tad too late for him to do that.
Dave may say we’re all alone in this ‘together’, and he may believe it, and he may just be right… but he’s still alone. No matter how many features, collaborators or just friends (like Daniel Kaaluya’s poignant scattered presence) surround him, he’s still stuck in a world where no one gets any justice, and if sheer loneliness doesn’t kill him, something outside of him, something societal, will. He preaches black communion, but he’s stuck to properly find it, or make a defiant call to action, like many of his peers. We’re All Alone in This Together sees a point of view that shouldn’t be discarded or thrown away, but it’s one that should be taken with caution. Spilling everything inside him may be a way out for him, for now, but we can hope a brighter light and perhaps a less ominous musical point of view can guide him through the next chapters of his life. Then again, he’s halfway there - on the final track, “Survivor’s Guilt”, he goes, “I'd rather rap about arguin' with my girl than fuckin' your girl / But I don't mind, because the both are true”. Maybe in the future, he’ll find some levity to those words. The youth that seemed to have ended way too fast can make a comeback, with patience and care. But it’s up to him.
Injury Reserve - By the Time I Get to Phoenix (experimental hip hop, glitch hop)
It should be clarified before we begin: I’m an outsider when it comes to Injury Reserve. I watched their hype grow throughout the years, yet only recently, more specifically, after the tragic death of Steppa J. Groggs, did I start paying attention to what they had to say. My reaction to them, prior to this lane-switching project for them, was that of a casual supporter; their mixtapes and EPs felt full of life, with two performers (Steppa and Ritchie with a T) with a lot of charisma and willing to provide a lot of good vibes to their music while also pulling off some moments of sobriety and clarity, and a producer (Parker Corey) with a good ear for melodies that gave both Ritchie with a T and the aforementioned Steppa to move around within the sonic space a lot. While I thought their debut album from 2019 was underwhelming, I still felt it was a nice victory lap that had one track that felt quite touching: the closing track “Three Man Weave”, as it quietly and smoothly supported 3 artists overcoming their personal struggles as a team, and knowing they had a bright future ahead of them. Hearing that track after the fact, knowing what was to come later, left a bittersweet taste in my mouth, especially as that was the final statement they’d make as a 3-piece.
Now, it’s all grey. Steppa’s gone, tragically so, and whatever remains of him left scattered throughout the album are just not enough. There have been many albums that tried to touch on an apocalyptic nature surrounding the collective tragedy we’re all currently under, but none like By the Time I Get to Phoenix; this time, it hits a personal core, where there’s no leader, no one at the wheel, and no one knows what to say. It’s the early moments of grief being painted through a red, vivid image, where the pain feels too fresh in order to say something coherent. The first song, “Outside”, lasts 6 minutes and most of it consists of Ritchie trying to come off with hitting punchlines or a coherent phrase or something that could reaffirm what he has to say… yet nothing can happen. He wants to “put everything on the table”, but the table is hollow, and everything’s about to fall into the ground. The production work has changed drastically, too; a funeral march in the background being buried by agitated vocal samples that never get their story right, synths that don’t know where to move so they just wail, and in the end, a long percussion-heavy outro that doesn’t attempt to reach a climax. There’s no drama here, there’s just pain and confusion at its core. It’s troubling, and sickening to hear.
The emphasis on electronic passages is much more marked here than on their previous offerings, since they match the real samples of bands like black midi, Black Country, New Road, The Fall, King Crimson and more, yet all these sounds feel alien-esque to them. Nothing adds up, nothing can give a sense of sonic closure to what’s going on. Ritchie, in particular, feels lost throughout most of this album, rambling nihilistic mantras that he knows won’t help anyone, but he doesn’t know how else to make this pain pass on. He crumbles with every step he takes, his figure becoming smaller by the minute, like on “SS San Francisco”, where none of the lyrics get to create something cohesive, only pieces: “What if I / I don’t wanna stay in here?”; “We ain’t supposed to be here”) and when he tries to build a proper verse in the same song, to try to patch out the legal injustices for housing for black people, his words fall short; too grounded a topic for an album with a burden as heavy as constant death and sorrow. The personal is political, yes, but this time, the personal just feels too heavy.
The middle stretch of the album is the patchiest, where the songs barely even last over 2 minutes. “Ground Zero”, with its scattered coverings of the first wave of the pandemic, barely feels like it’s about that, and it’s always circling back to that elephant in the room; and “Smoke Don’t Clear” just feels like the middle of a moment of being so high and out of your head, everything is foggy, as the percussion becomes a hush and Ritchie’s filtered vocals never get to have any sort of conclusion; in his eyes, the smoke never clears. It all makes sense, though, since the song previous to those 2 was “Footwork in a Forest Fire”, the first appearance of the ghost of Steppa J. Groggs, with a particularly aggressive performance that truly feels like something about his presence is fleeting; a sense of urgency in his performance now feels like it’s because of something different. What will happen when his posthumous vocals become filtered and glitched? What would he have to say? The song must fill itself with kick hits and words in order to not think.
Yet, in a rare moment of clarity, we get what could be the centerpiece of the album, “Top Picks for You”, a moment where the production is still quite as lost as always, a horizontal slug moving through nuclear bombs, but Ritchie gets to catch a glimpse of the one aspect of the world that hasn’t noticed Steppa’s loss: the algorithm. It still thinks for Steppa, it still acts for Steppa, it still recommends him what to watch, wear, listen to, etc. “Your pattern's still in tact / And algorithm's still reacting”. Ritchie, for once, gets to realize the scope of everything that’s been lost: a kid without his father, a fanbase without an icon, a house without its owner, and a cold piece of technology still working its way through someone who’s long gone. He says, “We won’t give up”. But after this brief moment of realization, it sounds like just another moment to self-destruct.
The conscious attempt at regarding the 5G towers on “Wild Wild West” is the one moment on the album that truly falls flat - again, too specific a topic to tackle on this project, in particular, especially when the commentary is this scattered, and especially when Steppa’s ghost comes back in for special moments. Yet the following track feels more personal; Ritchie (and Parker) let out all their envy and jealousy as all those they shaped and influenced got to greater heights than they did, and now they feel they’re the ones who have been left behind, where losing a key member of their group is gone. Resentment is finally on the table; they’ve officially turned their back on the world, on technology and on their peers. So, all that’s left is a continuous cycle of not getting back up again. “Knees” is a deathly example of a band too tired to stand up; everything hurts. A quick throwaway verse, then going back to the same hook as always (“My knees hurt when I grow / And that’s a tough pill to swallow”), as they hit the same habits as those that killed their partner. Steppa’s ghost steps back one more time to deliver a final message, one of preannounced death, where his alcohol influence became, indeed, a tough pill to swallow to everyone involved. Trap drums come off beat as the same sampled guitar chord is looped over and over; nothing evolves, nothing grows, they’re all in a perpetual cycle of destruction and being surrounded by death. Talking to ghosts. An eternal headache, being blinded by the lights; the room you’re sitting in is an empty void, and the inspiration is lost. Break into ruins.
And then… here come the warm jets. The sampling of Brian Eno’s eternal track comes into fruition, and those Fripp guitars that always sounded like aid was on the way now feel like airplanes being lifted into the air, and Ritchie and Parker have been left behind. “Bye Snow” portrays that final feeling of needing to say something, but feeling completely gone and faded to do so. So, once again, repeated phrases in front of backwards percussion that try to turn back time and, of course, fail. “We laugh, we joke 'cause, man, that's just how they'd want it / It rains, it pours, but, damn, n***a, it's really pourin'”. Those are the final words. In between a few chuckles and aimless adlibs, we’re left with reminiscences of a better future stripped away from them. Not fetishizing works of art like this is difficult, because we all know that, since the dead can’t stand up for themselves, we can do whatever we want with them. But realizing just how fragile the rest of the group is, who is still alive, who could put up a fight, and seeing just how beat up they are to truly and properly stand for themselves, that means you’re not dealing with ghosts; you’re dealing with people acting like this. By the Time I Get to Phoenix is not an ‘accurate’ representation of grief; it’s a representation of their grief. Appropriating it for one’s own narrative is sickening, with no signs of respect to be shown. This is a portrayal of artistic vulnerability that, beyond a few moments, won’t look outside its own world of sorrow; it’s not universal, and it shouldn’t be. But those warm jets fading into the horizon, those reds piercing through the dark… a tough pill to swallow, indeed. A portrayal of loss; a portrayal.
Hayes Carll - You Get It All (country)
A veteran with a sense of humor comes in to try to spit some ugly truths back at us, but with a smirk, so it’s never all that unpleasant! You Get It All is a fine, well done mix of some more cutting, sarcastic pieces of storytelling (that still feature undercurrents of tension and melancholy) and some moments of flat out drama to be found amongst the proceedings. Hayes is backed up by behind-the-scenes master Allison Moorer on production, and she gives him a well balanced band, with tones that never stand out too much but that can, indeed, generate some fresh, warm landscapes in order for Hayes to go all in.
The title track here is possibly the most explicit example of everything Hayes wants to say in one go: a declaration of love, giving everything he’s got to the one he loves, except the things he has are more abstract states of mind than anything concrete (“All my rights and all my wrongs / All my 'From now on' love songs / All my future, all my roots / All my worn out cowboy boots / I kick off in the hall, you get it all”), as if he was giving her the essence of the man he believes himself to be. That’s him at his most outwardly romantic, so you can figure when he gets pissed, he’s gonna be as acidic as possible. “She’ll Come Back to Me” features some of the heaviest production on the album, and just like the title track, it’s a repeated songwriting formula: dropping statements that are clearly wrong and/or inaccurate, because “just because one says a thing, that don't make it true”: two plus two is five, a bumblebee won't sting, it’s easiеr pushing that rock uphill, Dolly can’t sing (bold!), and… she’ll come back to him. He’s self-aware enough to not only not fall into the trap of self-delusion, but openly mock it and send it to hell. That lack of self-empathy can also be found on “Any Other Way”, where he details his trashy lifestyle full of miseries and shortcomings and failures, and being content with it all. After all, those things are what’s keeping him alive.
Then again, he’s not the completely self-centered holier-than-thou figure he pretends to be, at least not all the time. His team up with Brandy Clark, “In The Mean Time”, is a nuanced way of looking at both sides of not only how a relationship can break, but how it can be mended - but the time in between those two sides of the spectrum is haunting and devastating. He can also put himself in the shoes of a dying old man on “Help Me Remember”, with his wife beside him, and him not being able to remember who or (and this is the tragic part) what he was; what he stood for, what he fought for, what he loved and cherished throughout his many years. Hayes’ voice is still a tad too intact for the land to fully hit, but the songwriting in question is poignant and well balanced. However, he can put himself on the other side of the spectrum, as he’s the one seeing someone leaving this life on “Leave It All Behind”, and he encourages them to, indeed, go into that good night, so the suffering might just stop. Deep down, a sense of nobility is well rooted.
A smart-ass with a heart of gold is what we have here, and the moments where he gets to combine both sides are where the album shines brightest. “To Keep From Being Found” sees him running away from some girl who never wants to see him again, like running far from a crime, and he revels in all the details of renting a cheap motel room (but not as cheap as other ones!), and being able to let his problems out to his lawyer, with lovely attention to detail. “Different Boats” is far longer than it should be, but the groove’s seething into its 70s outlaw organ tones creates a mildly dislocating atmosphere that never dissipates, as Hayes notices the complete sense of individuality, the perceived lack of teamwork to make this world better; he doesn’t condone it, after all he’s in on it too, but he’s aware things could have turned out different.
A theme that resonates far better on the best song on the album, opener “Nice Things” (co-written by the Brothers Osborne! What a nice surprise!), from the point of view of God - being gendered as a ‘she’ without second guessing itself - and realizing just how bad the world she created has gone; oil instead of fish, getting arrested for having a smoke, asking for some lending hands and being thoroughly ignored by a group of apocalyptic protesters (“Sinner, get a job!”, what a horrible thing to say!). The chorus is one of the best accomplished melodic moments of the year, a stomping moment of lyrical frustration, of being handed everything and still messing everything up (imagine having a sense of empathy for God herself), with a refrain that throws its hands into the air, sighing with contempt, realizing you’ve gone as far as you can - “This is why, this is why / This is why, why, why! / This is why, y’all can’t have nice things”. So yes, Hayes Carll can get too far into his head, but with results this good, it’s hard to complain. After all, is he wrong?
Emily Scott Robinson - American Siren (singer/songwriter, country)
A soft criticism yet eventual embrace of femininity, and the baggage that comes with it. People are starting to listen, little by little, and a legacy is starting to be built. So Emily Scott Robinson, with all her might and all the force she’s demonstrated to having in the past, steps up with a collection of songs begging to detail the struggles of the American mythos that doesn’t pull any punches, even if those punches may come in waves - in other words, American Siren doesn’t hit immediately. Its subtleties are to be found through the passage of time, and Emily seems to be well aware of that, as the characters she builds are also people coming to long overdue realizations about their own lives.
The most obvious example of this is in the title, “Things You Learn the Hard Way”, the most traditional song on the album, yet one with a lot of delicacies in how it approaches both the lessons to be learned and the person who must learn them; unlike other singer/songwriters in this lane, she never comes off as condescending, or patronizing. She takes the time to explain the care and importance of, say, a mother’s presence in one’s life, as every point turns back to her. The touches of acknowledging and recollecting the small towns and places remains as present as always in her lyricism, too, and we’re all grateful for that. But she also stops to cut herself a break on “Cheap Seats”, where she sees a reflection of herself in a younger girl, stuck in a dead-end job yet eager to go out and change the world (“I won't let them have the best of me / One day I'll quit this job and then they'll see” shouldn’t resonate as well as it does, but Emily’s comforting voice and the slight swell of the guitars mark out the universal sentiment behind those words), and her desire to go back and comfort who she used to be is, indeed, a moment of mutual understanding for both herself and her audience. All she can do, for now, is look ahead and sing to those who were in her place.
The best moments of narrative clarity, like most of the best on Traveling Mercies, are the ones of playing and giving into the fiction, which is where we meet some of the most revealing and complex doubts of faith in country music this year. “Every Day in Faith” is an eerie piece that tries to find comfort in repetition, only to find discomfort, with its trembling organ and guitar, and Emily’s repeated lyrics where she somehow finds a way to go, to leave that place that was always unknown to her, and now finding a place where she belongs. “Let ‘Em Burn” is an equally minimal piece, mainly a hard-knocked piano playing through, that depicts a “faithful wife of 15 years, mother of 3”, and the hymns and the prayers have become routine for her. Sparse storytelling, but it details the place of a quiet, stagnant house where nothing can properly move or change, and the sobs only give way to themselves in quiet bathrooms. Emily’s vocals here are to be highlighted, how she talks about being on the edge of something wild, of breaking… and yet, she never does; always restrained, always focused because she knows the impact of her words. Putting herself as responsible for her daughter and her family, knowing that starting a fire would set a different example than that of royalty, all of that weighs on her terribly - an aspect of conflict of womanhood that Emily’s been touching from different aspects throughout her career. She lets it all burn, but there’s no real conflict or resolution to it all. There can’t be, not with all this weight still present.
That’s why the songs where the characters do wind up with some sort of happy ending are refreshing and touching, especially on an album like this. The best example is possibly the best song on here, “If Trouble Comes a Lookin’”, a soft ballad detailing a woman in a failed marriage, hoping that it all fails, and a frustrated priest with a late awakening of passions not to be told… in other words, two souls finding each other in the middle of the wreckages that are their respective lives, overcoming those dictaments of society that held them back for what must have been decades. They try to find a way to be free with each other, as every touch lingers in their memories, and even if they weren’t meant to be, they know now what to make out of those wonderful moments. “And he’ll kiss her like she always wanted, back against the wall / And she’ll step out of her dress looking like Eve before the fall”, angelically blasphemous. But it’s also worth noting how Emily can find these people not only in fiction, but in real life, like on “Lost Woman’s Prayer” where she finds a soul companion on the road, one she can confide in after being on her own for far too long, and she sees in this woman something very freeing, as she’s meant to be a monument for grace and dreams that never runs too far from the stream, and even if she did, she’d be alright. There’s no tragic ending to this story, either - they still talk to this day. People who were able to run through the power of a prayer. A different kind than that of what’s expected, thankfully.
I will say, and I fall in the minority here, that the centerpiece of the album, “Hometown Hero”, is nowhere near as effective as most of the rest of the project. It’s an exercise in trying to make something out of the worst, in understanding a devastatingly young veteran’s suicide, haunted by his own demons, and certain aspects of the songwriting are quite potent, in particular the moments of doubt coming from Emily herself. The third verse/bridge is the crucial moment of realization, “Your kids are gonna grow up asking about you / How you could love someone and leave them / And how both things could be true?”. There’s no easy answer to that, and Emily’s aware of that. The main issue comes with the burden of this issue hitting too close to home for Emily, and somehow, she finds herself in a position where she doesn’t feel able to doubt this tragic conclusion - she respects his memory too much to do that - and so the songwriting suffers, as it mainly reduces to plain description that’s meant to imply some deeper sense of loss of meaning in the face of tragedy, but that intentional vagueness mainly makes the song serve as a tragic reminder. And for a song (and songwriter) that aims to ask the tougher questions, it doesn’t feel as committed. Maybe with a longer length, she could’ve sprawled into something more potent (or the opposite: maybe with a shorter length, it could have introduced us to this tragic story and made use of that brevity), but the moment where Emily feels called upon to say something grander, she takes a step back. Putting it right at the front of the album doesn’t help, either.
A shame, since it’s the one moment that’s meant to hit harder than the rest, but every other song on here is strong enough to carry the album in their own right. Interestingly enough, the album never feels too contemporary or vintage; instead, it feels intimate and coveted. The opening track, “Old Gods”, should give that right away, as the ragged guitar brings up a soft atmosphere that never brings back old moments of playing around with instruments when you were little, not knowing what to do with them - in other words, it harkens back to a moment before society’s rules were implemented upon you. That intimacy remains static throughout the album, and, indeed, American Sirens fulfills its conceptual purpose. Its issues of faith and womanhood are pointed and mournful, but they show the way the high road can give folks some sense of liberation or liberty, even with all the baggage and sense of tradition one might have. It’s necessary, in that sense, and Emily’s never-ending sense of empathy rides this album right through to the end, with enough power in its best moments to stray away from the pack with conviction and vigor.