Listen to my favorite tracks off each album on my Spotify playlist! Updated weekly with all the best new country, Americana, and whatever else I feel like — this is music like your life depends on it.
Nick Gusman and the Coyotes — Lifting Heavy Things
Nick Gusman and the Coyotes are arriving on the scene at just the right time with their brash, booze-soaked alt country. The band tears through Lifting Heavy Things with chutzpah. The album is a rocket ship of sweat, tears, and amphetamines. It’s clear the band worships at an alter at the intersection of garage rock and outlaw country, though sometimes that devotion surfaces some outdated attitudes. (In almost 15 years of writing about this genre, I have yet to hear a party rock anthem about an underaged boy who drinks and fucks too much.) But the band is at its best when it slows down long enough to be reflective. “Magic 8 Ball” showcases the band’s storytelling and ability to masterfully turn a phrase. Lifting Heavy Things is an exciting album, both for its frenetic pace and for the band’s potential in the years to come.
Christopher Paul Stelling — Forgotten But Not Gone & Few and Far Between
Christopher Paul Stelling has not had an easy go of it these past few years. Forgotten But Not Gone & Few and Far Between is a double album appropriate to the seismic shifts in Stelling’s life: namely, the end of his marriage. Understandably, this double album is a challenging listen, with Stelling leading us through the hope of a new romance, the devastation of its sudden end, and climbing through the wreckage. Stelling is nothing if not intense, and his shimmering guitar compositions and vocal performances that incorporate all of his being beautifully capture the double-edged sword of love and pain. Stelling gets more experimental in the album’s later tracks than he’s been before — and somehow the quiet electronic compositions are more devastating than his fiery passion.
Ciao Malz — Safe Then Sorry
Sometimes you find your calling early. That’s how Ciao Malz (Malia DelaCruz) found her way to music, by spending hours and hours playing around with GarageBand as a teenager. With her first solo release Safe Then Sorry, DelaCruz captures both the freedom of experimenting in her bedroom as well as the restraint of someone who understands their craft. These vignettes of loneliness and boredom are set to silky grooves that are familiar — yet a bit unlike anything you’ve heard before. It’s almost as if indie rock took a right turn at jazz, the kind of disciplined experimentalism hat Audio Antihero is known for.
Kim Deal — Nobody Loves You More
As I said elsewhere, Kim Deal isn’t a bass player. She’s the bass player. Effortlessly cool and impossibly efficient, nobody does it better than her. Her debut solo album, Nobody Loves You More, feels like the ultimate artist’s statement, as if she’s saying “hang on — let me show you what I can do.” Deal leads us between punk, disco, country, Roi Orbison-esque rock’n’roll, and the meaty sounds of classic rock. It all sounds a piece because if there’s one thing Deal understands, it’s how to craft a fucking song. Deal’s lyrics may be obscure, but I’ve always felt she’s always been about communicating the feelings between the lines anyway. This is a masterpiece by an artist who has always deserved more attention than she’s gotten.
Ramona and the Holy Smokes — ‘Til It’s Over
If ‘Til It’s Over is just a sneak peek at Ramona and the Holy Smokes’ body of work, I predict that their album next year will make a huge splash. (PS — the Kickstarter still has a few days left on it, and you’ll want to chip in when you listen to the EP.) The band have a pitch-perfect take on classic country, and they’re as tight a group of musicians as I’ve ever heard. Ramona Martinez’s voice is a portal to an earlier time of torch singers with sass. Til It’s Over is a gem of an EP, with each of the four songs sounding better than the last. Whether Ramona and the Holy Smokes are the life of the party or regretting it the next day, they are always in control, and always fantastic.
You can check out tracks by these artists and more on the Adobe & Teardrops playlist — on Spotify.