A- Margo Price
Midwest Farmer's Daughter
Third Man
Over the past few years, making good country music seems more often than not to be women's work. While too many men are in party-hearty, bro-country mode, singer-songwriters such as Ashley Monroe, Brandy Clark, Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves are digging deeper, writing articulate and heartfelt songs that feel authentic, are grounded in contemporary experience and evocative of country's roots.
Margo Price, newly signed to Jack White's label, is a welcome addition. Her album's title echoes Loretta Lynn's Coal Miner's Daughter and, like Lynn, Price's songs are rooted in her own hard-knock life. Her father lost the family farm, Nashville's star factory chewed her up and spit her out, she lived with a married man and lost a child. It's all in the first song: "But my firstborn died and I cried out to God/Is there anybody out there looking down on me at all?" she sings, as her bruised voice is about to break, in the heartbreaking song-as-memoir "Hands of Time."
Price's lyrics are vivid, clear-eyed and direct; her music carries a retro aura that rings true. In "Weekender," we get reflections on jail time: "My old man ain't got the cash/To even call my bail/Should have listened to the good Lord/Maybe quit my life of sin/Before I went backsliding again." Classic country. She takes Nashville to task on "This Town Gets Around." At turns vulnerable and scrappy, Price's emotional voice and personal delivery pull you in.
The late Merle Haggard was often a profound storyteller in song; a quality Price exhibits here.
Hot tracks: "Hands of Time," "Weekender," "Since You Put Me Down," the rowdy "Hurtin' (On the Bottle)"
-- ELLIS WIDNER
B Robbie Fulks
Upland Stories
Bloodshot
Inspired in part by James Agee's Depression-era nonfiction opus Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Robbie Fulks' Upland Stories is a spare collection of country folk songs steeped in rural dust and hardships as well as his own observations on aging, love, fatherhood and life's joys and disappointments.
Fulks is a devilishly smart, wry lyricist who picks a mean six-string and while his playing here is sharp, the songs and characters are often worn down by bad luck and love-torn hearts. One exception is the jaunty "Aunt Peg's New Man," a bit of a hoe-down in celebration of a fiddle-playing new family member. "Needed," a haunting, beautifully written biography of an unplanned pregnancy and all its ramifications, may be the album's centerpiece.
Produced by Steve Albini, Upland Stories continues Fulks' recent streak of outstanding, acoustic-based song craft.
Hot tracks: "Needed," "Alabama at Night"
-- SEAN CLANCY
B- Yeasayer
Amen & Goodbye
Mute
When I saw the title of the latest from Brooklyn experimental rock band Yeasayer, I figured they were breaking up. I mean, c'mon, is that not the best title ever for a farewell record?
Not the case, though. The band apparently is just fine and its weirdo tendencies and odd approach to melody are finely displayed here. Amen & Goodbye touches on religion, mysticism, parenthood and impermanence while the melodies careen elegantly between Talking Heads funk mixed with jazzy, progressive pop. The band hasn't exactly expanded its sound here -- you almost are pulling for them to get even weirder -- but there's a melancholy that makes this album strangely attractive.
Hot tracks: "I Am Chemistry," "Divine Simulacrum"
-- SEAN CLANCY
B K. Michelle
More Issues Than Vogue
Atlantic
The R. Kelly mentee's been a regular cast member on cable's Love & Hip Hop. On her third album, K. Michelle can't hide behind reality TV -- and the result is impressive. This record is tongue-in-cheek fun. The Tennessee girl has professed a love of country, and her trailer park theme video for "Mindful" (produced by T-Pain) is a blast. Still, there's no detectable country here, only full-on urban R&B and hip-hop.
"Got Em Like" features production from Andre 3000 and Big Boi. "Rich" features Yo Gotti and Trina and slays with lines like "I got rich-people problems." Jason Derulo duets with Michelle on the flirty "Make the Bed." The singles "Not a Little Bit" and "Ain't You" are slow, delicate numbers that shine a light on her qualified pipes (her vocal coach also trained Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears) but don't capture the irreverence laced throughout this record.
Hot tracks: "Rich," "Got Em Like," "Mindful"
-- BILL CHENEVERT,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
B Willie Nile
World War Willie
River House
Willie Nile is loud and proud.
While other rockers merely strut around leathered and weathered, Nile takes one giant leap for mankind: glorifying the aging process with the party-hearty song "Grandpa Rocks." Its featured character is depicted in a Clash T-shirt and dirty combat boots.
Soul mates, seekers -- even seductive sociopaths -- populate the storytelling in Nile's robust new album, co-produced with Grammy winner Stewart Lerman.
As the journey begins, the 67-year-old firecracker and his rock-solid band reincarnate their early rebel in "Forever Wild" ("16 and crazy -- we were ragged and free ..."). "Let's All Come Together" is an amped-up social anthem -- think danceable Pete Seeger.
Listeners won't be able to resist hollering the stress-busting refrain in the track "Hell Yeah."
There's quite a bit that's irresistible in this diverse album -- including Nile's self-deprecating humor.
Hot tracks: "Forever Wild," "Hell Yeah"
-- KILEY ARMSTRONG,
The Associated Press
Style on 04/19/2016