Following four straight albums with his band the 400 Unit, the Nashville-based Grammy-winning Alabama singer-songwriter’s latest LP is a stripped back, heartfelt, candid, beautiful set of new Americana folk with just him and his 1940 Martin acoustic guitar. Opener Bury Me even opens with vocal only, before that light, perfectly weighted, fluid, finger-picking sound. His lyrics are compact and vivid too, with this example in which he brings together three different kinds of bars in life’s ups and downs: “Well, I ain't no cowboy / But I can ride / And I ain't no outlaw/ But I've been inside / And there were bars of steel, boys / And there werе bars to sing/ And there werе bars with swinging doors/ For all the time between.” Love songs, loss, sobriety, change, Alabama, New York and much more run through the rich seams of these songs’ apparent simplicity, with another gem from the perkily plucked and sung Ride To Roberts: “God said, "hold my beer"/ And He made a man so / He could watch and laugh / But everything's good these days/ We'll ride to Robert's on a Friday night/ And hear Don Kelley play / And I'll catch you dreamin' in the neon light.” Eileen is another gorgeous love song, but perhaps it’s the title track that is the standout, one to a woman with golden hair: “I love my love / I love her bite/ I like the way she disassembles me at night.” Less is always proving to more is in the precision and control of a songwriter at full maturity. Out on Southeastern Records / Thirty Tigers.
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