Author: Brennen Kelly

After a six-year-long hiatus, the Turnpike Troubadours are back with their fifth studio album, A Cat in the Rain. It’s been a long time coming for the legendary Red Dirt band, and the expectations from everyone in the independent country scene were through the roof. The question that remains is: “Was it worth the wait?” To preface this review, I want to express just how happy I am that Evan Felker and Co. are back together creating music. Though this review will still be as objective as possible, I feel that it would be amiss to not note how important…

The wait is finally over. After months of speculation, tweets, retractions and false release dates, Zach Bryan has finally released his highly-anticipated follow-up to 2022’s American Heartbreak, a self-titled and independently produced record. If you haven’t been keeping up with the rollout of the album, the record was first confirmed to have an August release date by Bryan himself on TikTok back in July. Flash forward to August 8th and Wesley Schultz, the lead vocalist of The Lumineers, posted a snippet of Spotless with the caption, “His album drops August 19!” This, of course, sent the internet into a frenzy…

August 24, 2019. Before he was one of the biggest stars in the country genre, the former Navy member, Zach Bryan, took his friends to Florida and produced a 12-song, fully independent project titled DeAnn. To say the rest is history is an understatement. DeAnn was famously recorded in an Airbnb in Jacksonville, Florida. With absolutely no experience recording music, Bryan and Co. marched into the said Airbnb, stood mattresses up against the walls to absorb sound and created something completely raw and refreshing. In an interview with Saving Country Music, he described his hesitation to record the album without…

Southern rock and country music have shared a particularly close connection. From Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Eagles to Blackberry Smoke and the Drive-By Truckers, nearly every decade has had flashes of brilliance when the two genres are blended together. Today, Joe Stamm Band is attempting to do the same with their third studio album, Wild Man. When you first listen to Wild Man, the first thing that will most likely stick out is the fine line the band rides between country and southern rock. While admittedly, I believe the more traditionally country-leaning tracks are the strongest on the record, the…

“My life was black and white, but she’s the painter.” Cody Johnson, one of the biggest acts in country music at the moment, is back with the highly-anticipated follow-up to his highly-acclaimed double album, Human. The ‘Til You Can’t singer teased the song’s release on August 1st with this Instagram Reel: While announcing the song’s release on his website, Johnson shared his personal favorite lyric and how it describes his marriage with his wife, “My favorite lyric in ‘The Painter’ is ‘for every wall I built, she saw a canvas.’ If there’s anything that describes my marriage with my wife,…

Well… we were wrong. After Wesley Schultz took to Instagram yesterday and said that Zach Bryan’s brand new album was set to release on August 19th, Bryan went ahead, cleared the air, and gave us an official release of August 25. There’s reason to believe that this was posted due to the confusion caused by Schultz’s Instagram story yesterday afternoon where he said, “honored to do this sick tune with you” and “His album drops August 19!” While Bryan has yet to release a title or tracklist, there are still a lot of things we know, including that the album was…