Showing posts with label Shooter Jennings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shooter Jennings. Show all posts
Mar 25, 2022
Mar 11, 2022
New Video / Yelawolf & Shooter Jennings / "Jump Out the Window"
From the new album Sometimes Y, out today.
Jan 24, 2022
Jan 7, 2022
Jan 6, 2022
Dec 10, 2021
Album Review / Jason Boland & The Stragglers / The Light Saw Me
As noted in “Transmission Out,” many of us are confronted, at some point in our lives, with the unexplainable. These confrontations can come in the form of religious experiences, visions, or, in our narrator’s case, the life-changing encounter of a mysterious light shining through the trees one night. “I saw the light, but more importantly, the light saw me,” Boland explains in the title track. The narrator is forced to reevaluate his view of the supernatural, and despite his warnings in “A Tornado & the Fool,” no one around him seems to pay attention. Nevertheless, he remains convinced of the things he saw, at once awed and horrified by this new reality, as conveyed in the stirring opener, “Terrifying Nature.”
Our hero, however, is concerned with far more than just convincing us of his encounter with the supernatural. Perhaps most troubling are his observations of modern society. Once he has arrived in the future, he is dismayed to learn that it is not the paradise he had imagined it might be. He comments on the ghosts of people “staring down at their phones” in the atmospheric “Straight Home” and on “Here for You,” he laments the people’s lack of care for the amount of oil they burn. On the same track, he asks himself, “Could humanity be in decline?” The future, it seems, is a lonely, godforsaken place, and this characterization of it by an outsider from the past paints a much starker picture than that which might have been conveyed had Boland chosen to write more directly about these subjects.
Throughout the journey, however, the one thing that seems to remain constant and true, even across the barriers of space and time, is love. The narrator promises that he will always be there for the ones he loves on “Here for You,” as he journeys away from them into the unknown. On “Straight Home,” he is simply looking for a way to reverse this course and return to the world he knew and the people he loves. The cover of Bob Childers’ “Restless Spirits” fits flawlessly into this narrative as well, as if the account of a wandering soul who is strengthened by the vision of his wife in the kitchen so that he can go on another day without her was especially written for the lost, lonesome cowboy of The Light Saw Me.
Sonically, this album contains some of the most engaging material from Jason Boland & the Stragglers in many years. Such a tale as this one is rarely communicated through the medium of country music, but, like all Jason Boland albums, this one is decidedly traditional, with plenty of fiddle and steel to go around. However, The Light Saw Me is also unique in that it captures more of the live feel of a Boland concert, with more extended solos and participation from the Stragglers than what is found on most of their studio albums. The Shooter Jennings influence in the production is evident and welcome as well, adding a darker edge and more of a country rock element to certain tracks. The extended outro of "The Tornado & the Fool” perfectly captures both the chaos of a tornado touching down and the battle raging within our narrator’s mind about the reality of what he has seen. The electric guitar riff on “Terrifying Nature” cannot be described as anything other than catchy, and the atmospheric feel of “Straight Home” enhances the desperation and loneliness conveyed by the lyrics. It is as though Boland, the Stragglers, and Jennings recognized instinctively that in order to draw listeners in, given the subject matter, extra care would need to be taken to ensure the songs were accessible musically, and indeed, that extra care is the intangible thing which elevates this album from a good one to an excellent, rare piece of art.
The endeavor to produce a concept record about alien abduction and time travel is something to be commended in and of itself, and especially the aspiration to render such a record within the scope of country music. Jason Boland & the Stragglers not only succeed in their endeavor, but also manage to deliver an album that is highly accessible, both musically and lyrically. The Light Saw Me is more than the story of a hapless cowboy forcibly being uprooted from his homeland and thrust into an uncertain future; rather, it is the universal, compelling tale of all who have wandered through this life searching for meaning and of the kind of love which, beyond all reason and across oceans of space and time, somehow seems to endure.
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The Light Saw Me is available everywhere now.
Nov 18, 2021
Nov 5, 2021
Apr 15, 2021
Jan 21, 2021
Ted Lasso Country Reaction Gifs
When one bad pop-country artist has a hit with the least country song ever, the next bad pop-country artist is like...
Oh, did I get Russell Swindell mixed up with Jordan Rice?
Some people think Sam Hunt is country and...
(they're all wrong)
Wanna hear a song from a guy who a major paper describes as the next emo-rap country star?
Me after getting in a Twitter spat with Blake Shelton
When the car beside you is blasting Kane Brown
When some Aaron Lee Tasjan comes on
When Shooter Jennings sees his manager for the first time in a while
Dec 30, 2020
Trading Places Country Reaction Gifs
**foul language warning**
♫ ♬ The boys get out and the room fills up with law ♫ ♬
but I really can't remember when ♫ ♬
When Mr. Cyrus finally takes a shower
When somebody wearing a Kane Brown shirt wants you to hurry up with the phone
Shooter Jennings be like...nah, gunslinger
And finally...
Dec 4, 2020
Nov 18, 2020
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