After his eccentric, taskmaster father (Udo Kier) dies, Andy (Tye Sheridan) — a burly, brooding mass of tortured American masculinity — joins a renowned physician, Dr. Wallace Fiennes (Jeff Goldblum), on an increasingly fraught tour of a debunked lobotomy procedure. So begins Rick Alverson’s…
Waylon Jennings may not have invented outlaw country, but with Honky Tonk Heroes he gave the movement its clearest distillation of purpose; its manifesto, its aesthetic framework, even its narrative vocabulary. Naturally, for a movement so rooted in myth-making, there’s an important backstory. Jennings, along with his pal…
What Luke Combs ultimately represents is a recalibration of mainstream country music. Less traditionalist than traditional-ish, Combs presents a more mainstream-palatable iteration of Chris Stapleton. The genre still hasn’t reconciled Stapleton’s commercial success vis-a-vis the rest of the trash they’ve been playing on the…
To this point in his career, Justin Moore hasn’t developed an artistic identity: A consistent C-list presence, his output has been characterized primarily by Moore’s trend-hopping, nakedly chasing success at radio. Fortunately for Moore, the current climate at country radio has turned at least…
It took far longer than it should have, but Runaway June’s terrific “Buy My Own Drinks” finally clawed its way into the top 10 at country radio. And having a bit of commercial momentum has given the trio enough clout for Wheelhouse Records to…
Kentucky troubadour Tyler Childers is fast on his way to becoming one of country music’s most accomplished miniaturists. His body of work now includes three studio albums that are admirably economical and restrained, 35-minute run times suggesting a classicist approach; meanwhile, his songwriting style…
Our monthly music feature, Rooted & Restless, finds country music aficionados Josh Hurst and Jonathan Keefe wading into all things Americana, expanding the definition of ‘country’ to incorporate all the permutations that the genre has opened itself up to, especially in recent years. We…
The third official collaboration between Buddy & Julie Miller — long one of the Americana scene’s reigning power couples — is not a divorce album, though it sounds like it might have been a close shave. Arriving a full decade after their previous release,…
The latest film from Filipino director Lav Diaz to make it to US streaming services is the almost four-hour long, politically charged, a cappella musical Season of the Devil — a film that is, per the director himself, “about motherfuckers like Donald Trump.” A…
Directed by Nahnatchka Khan and starring Ali Wong and Randall Park, Always Be My Maybe is a rara avis. It’s a romantic comedy with Asian-American leads, and that alone would make it worthy of attention. But this film does much more than just mechanically…
