19-year-old Waylon Wyatt wastes no time in letting us know who his influences are on his debut album’s opening track. From the first chord, “But There Was A Time” immediately harkens back to a not-so-distant past (about a year ago) and Sam Barber’s cult hit “Man of the Year,” complete with some thunderous guitar strums and a raspy voice that strikes down like lightning in between the pauses of the storm. The two share a lot of similar DNA, gunning for that working-man timbre that shot Tyler Childers to prominence; at the same time, they admire the simple but weighty songwriting that popularized a young Zach Bryan. As for Wyatt himself, who seems to pull from a lot of branches on the Americana tree, the trouble seems to be finding some fertile space left in that crowded garden.
The singer clearly has his finger on the pulse of a sound that continues to grip country music diehards as easily as it entices its skeptics, pairing guttural vocals with heart-stomping lyrics and letting the few bells and whistles he uses serve as accent pieces to the bigger picture. “I feel like a creep for wanting to figure out who it could be that loves you better than me,” he moans on “Leave It Alone,” before going in for the kill with the line “I can’t compete, but I can still yearn.” It may not be as autobiographical as Childers’s “Tattoos” or as authorial as Bryan’s “‘68 Fastback,” but the point still gets across. As a young writer, Wyatt has the chops to tug at the heartstrings, even if he’s still trying to figure out how to make the yank feel distinct.
He gets halfway there on a track like “In Loving Melody,” where a tongue-in-cheek punchline helps to sell Wyatt’s eulogy regarding some abstract form of love he’s struggling to process properly. Down the line on “Body Heat,” the songwriter is crooning on a lullaby that makes good use of some steamy analogies, again adding some shading to the rough outline of his character. But Wyatt really gets to flex his songwriting muscles on “Dustpiles,” the record’s title track, where vulnerability and a quick pen collide in gut-wrenching fashion. Wyatt croons on love and death, wondering if the two are inseparable before arriving at the conclusion that it may not really matter. Like the voices he looks up to, he’s at his best when he lets himself drop his guard and get truly vulnerable.
But aside from the sticky slide of the keys on “Dead Man Walking” and a handful of songwriting highlights, it’s hard to tell how exactly Wyatt plans to stand out in a crowded craze of no-frills artists. The blame isn’t entirely on him, though. Nashville’s felt like it’s been getting closer to the morning after its Zach Bryan mania for almost a year now, and the iron is starting to feel a little colder to the touch. Though the few moments of character development Wyatt does sprinkle throughout this 17-track debut are more than enticing and a credit to opening up his collaborative channels with seasoned songwriters and producers who understand how to make less feel like more.
As a body of work, “Dustpiles” does little to push the needle in terms of the raw introspection so much modern country music tries to dig through. It does, however, succeed in setting up Waylon Wyatt as a promising young act that can spot a crafty hook or a needed change of pace when he hears one, even if diversions out of that comfort zone are sparse here. The potential is apparent, as voices this sandy and lyrics that croak out under strain aren’t often overlooked despite their population density. The real challenge for Wyatt, and subsequently his debut record, is finding a way to stand out from the pack.