The Ballad of Dood and Juanita is traditional without every feeling old-timey, and is more fun and plays to Simpson’s strengths more than his more recent efforts. The Ballad of Dood and Juanita may or may not go down as the defining Sturgill Simpson album…
Los Lobos’ Native Sons is a top-tier covers collection and a heartfelt love letter to Los Angeles. Long before their days of weighty concepts and studio experimentation, Los Lobos cut their teeth as a wedding band, doggedly gigging across Los Angeles. Relying on a…
Bob Dylan’s 31st studio album was released to lofty expectations on September 11, 2001. Listeners who managed to snag a copy on that fateful day were greeted, just two songs in, with an image of dreadful portent. “Sky full of fire / pain pouring…
Stand for Myself reflects Yola’s next phase of healing after her debut, a sophomore effort that is equally confident and vulnerable. Stand for Myself is only the second album released by Yola, the British country-roots maven, Nashville transplant, and sometimes Highwoman. And yet, it’s…
Exit Wounds proves more rollicking that Dylan’s more introspective solo work, not a full success but still a testament to the easy pleasures of his roots-rock craft. The existence of a new Wallflowers album — arriving a full nine years after the sleek, vaguely funky…
Amythyst Kiah’s breakthrough autobiographical album dwells in the darkness without getting lost in the void. If you know Amythyst Kiah, it’s probably through her involvement with Our Native Daughters, the Rhiannon Giddens-led all-star troupe that reasserted the centrality of Black women to the history…
Ashley Monroe fully commits to a new mood on Rosegold, but the lightweight affair is stripped of much depth or character. Ever since Like a Rose, the 2013 album that was for all intents and purposes her debut, Ashley Monroe has been all but…
The Marfa Tapes finds the three old-hats of country riding each other’s waves to melancholy and joyous heights. Toward the end of The Marfa Tapes, you’ll hear Miranda Lambert sing “Tin Man,” a signature song from her 2016 masterpiece The Weight of These Wings. She’s…
In 2008, the Drive-by Truckers weren’t exactly a band on the ropes — actually, they were on a winning streak that no other contemporary American band could touch — but they were certainly a band with something to prove. For one thing, they were…
Giddens and Turrisi’s latest collab is an intimate, interior record that beautifully blurs its sonic lines. Rhiannon Giddens may not be the only musician who recorded an album during lockdown, but she may be one of the best-suited for such a project. For one…
