In today’s world, country music has never been harder to pigeonhole or stereotype. Subgenres like pop-country, beach country, country-folk, country-rock and so many more have created a diverse and unpredictable environment for artists to innovate. This culture has cemented Appalachian troubadour Tyler Childers as a leader in the indie-country movement. Thus far, all of his records have stood out with strong concepts and wildly original compositions.
Riding a massive wave of hype more than four years after his sophomore LP, his third album “Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven” was a massive letdown. Childers got experimental with the project, rerecording the same seven songs in different styles, and things got very weird, even for him. As a result of that album leaving so many fans wanting more, Childers had a lot to prove when he announced his latest album ‘Rustin’ in the Rain’ less than a year later.
It felt like Childers was backed against a wall with this project, and he came out swinging with the title track “Rustin’ In The Rain.” A uniquely 90s country-indebted guitar sound grabs the listener’s attention from the very first note and holds their interest throughout the whole rollicking ride. It would’ve been a great fit on his “Country Squire” album in its Dwight Yoakem-esque bouncing rhythm.
The album’s lead single ‘In Your Love’ remains one of the most interesting talking points in this record. Putting aside the much-discussed music video, this is song remains one of the most beautiful tracks on the album. You can feel the soul in Tyler’s voice with romantic conviction scarcely heard from him since ‘Lady May.’ The full-band, piano-led production makes ‘In Your Love’ another track that might remind fans of Tyler’s “Country Squire” days.
‘Rustin’ In The Rain’ features a couple of covers including ‘Space and Time,’ originally sung by S.G. Goodman. After covering the song live a handful of times, a recorded version has been a long time coming for a lot of fans, and it doesn’t disappoint. Once again, Tyler leans hard into his soulful influences; it feels more and more like he’s content to leave his folksy, singer-songwriter influences behind in favor of an Allman Brothers-reminiscent country-soul sound.
The song ‘Luke 2:8-10’ is probably the weakest offering here. The addition of the accordion sounds like it could be featured on the streets of Venice, Italy meshed with a repetitive, gospel-inspired chorus. The song honestly isn’t bad by any means, but in comparison to some of the other tracks, it just doesn’t get the job done to be a standout. If anything, this track feels like a holdover from ‘Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven.’
One downside to the album as a whole is that while it’s just seven songs, they are definitely a bit all over the place. No two songs feel like they have much to do with one another, and there isn’t an overall theme to this record as we’ve seen in Tyler’s previous efforts, as strange as some of them were. As such, the shortness of this album hurts it in a big way. It limits Childers’s ability for a bigger story to be told. Moreover, Tyler Childers is quickly running out of any credit he built up with his fans from his excellent debut “Purgatory.” This would’ve been a great album to show out and give the old-school die-hards something to latch onto.
Nevertheless, “Rustin’ In The Rain” features a little bit of everything and is honestly some of Childers’s best work since “Purgatory.” While it is only seven songs, he makes them all count for the most part. It might not be completely perfect and does have a miss or two, but it is still a massive improvement from what we got with “Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven.” The question of whether Tyler Childers will ever return to his twangy “Purgatory” days remains unanswered. Still, the overall creativity of “Rustin’ In The Rain” does make you wonder if he’ll one day reclaim his crown as the top dog of the indie country movement.
8.4/10
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