Whitney Pastorek
Despite some evocative melodies, there’s nothing here with a hook to match the meat of ’90s classics like ”Linger” and ”Zombie,” and too many of the repetitive lyrics clunk harder than a rhyming dictionary thrown against a wall.
10y
Hemingway's Whiskey, Kenny Chesney's first album in two years finds him slinging his usual mix of country beachcomber anthems and sensitive reminiscence.
9y
ZBB's sophomore effort You Get What You Give doesn't stray far from their platinum- selling blend of country-frat jams and oceanfront jangles; Jimmy Buffett even guests.
6y
The moody set mixes covers of legends like Vern Gosdin with originals that ring so true they might as well be standards.
10y
It’s time for another round of country music madlibs, and with the exception of "After 17" — an awkward ode to a teenaged lass who’s "not a woman, not a girl" — the results float comfortably in the haze of Jackson’s 20 year career. If you hate surprises, he’s your guy.
9y
This concert CD/DVD does a great job of highlighting both sides of The White Stripes’ carefully controlled public persona.
2y
First three thoughts upon listening to Corbin’s debut: 1) He sounds like George Strait. 2) He is singing old-school songs, full of wit and heart. 3) It sounds effortless.
2y
He's devoted to traditional arrangements, and he's packed this fourth album, Haywire, with steel guitar, fiddles, and two-stepping beats.
10y
How you respond to this cloying, gothic preciousness ... will have everything to do with your personal tolerance level for things like rough-hewn songcraft and small children chanting about zombies.
9y
With themes of sin and forgiveness, regret and acceptance, loss and grown-up love, Revolution is a portrait of an artist in full possession of her powers.
10y
Do these self-penned songs explode like bottle rockets in the vast West Texas sky? No. They sound like George Strait songs, of course. But look, the dude’s cut 57 No. 1 hits. Would you change your tune?
10y
The vast majority of their debut album, Gloriana, falls somewhere between maudlin boy-band songwriting clichés and a particularly melodramatic Six Flags country revue.
1mo
The first half of Horehound is just weird enough to be utterly mesmerizing, a series of ominous, fuzzed-out psycho-blues riffs that climax in the tremendous Rush-meets-Jay-Z rave-up of ''Treat Me Like Your Mother.'' But creative disintegration floods the record's latter regions with less captivating bump-'n'-grindhouse grooves.
2y
As the string section swoons, then stabs, behind him, don’t spend too much time trying to figure out what he’s talking about. Just be glad you’ve found such an enthralling maze to get lost in.
10y
He's taken such an aggressive header into the fluffy clouds of romantic optimism, in fact, that he should have just mailed Van Morrison a couple bucks and called this thing Love, Love & Crazy Love. Get thee behind him, cynicism!
10y
There’s a sadness running through the thick Muscle Shoals sound of the former Drive-By Trucker’s second solo effort. This is a record made for exquisite wallowing.
10y
Noble Beast veers off into a cheerily nonspecific world of jangly guitars and meandering melodies that evoke everyone from Okkervil River to Radiohead without ever making an impact of their own.
10y
The guitar whiz cashes in his superstar chits for this largely instrumental album, an indulgence he's earned but doesn't quite pull off.
10y
If you consider Darius Rucker's bajillion-selling voice something of an old friend, Learn to Live is worth a listen. Otherwise? Meh.
10y
For while Chesney can always count on the booze-cruise crowd, the tentative maturity that threads its way through Just Who I Am reveals an artist ready and able to try something deeper. And there’s a lot of us out here who’d happily raise a rum punch to that.
10y
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