Lower by Benjamin Booker
Salt River by Sam Amidon
Night Driving by Max McNown
Max McNown is an Oregon born Nashville based country artist. I enjoyed this album. His second and two albums in two years. It's nice to be reminded that even in Nashville someone can write music about more than God, whiskey, and trucks. It's also nice to hear someone not overproduce an album, something else I wasn't sure they could do in Nashville anymore.
OK enough cracking on Nashville. What makes this album is the fact that McNown is a good vocalist who is writing thoughtful and personal songs. The album has a consistent vibe and a good feel to it. It falls more into the pop country genre than anything else, much like Taylor Swift when she was country I would say.
This would be a good album to play when taking a night drive. You could either sing along with it or have it in the background while talking with a friend. All in all a solid album.
I like the song by Sam Amidon, of whom I had never heard, though I see he has already gotten the NPR Tiny Desk Concert love.
ReplyDeleteIt's such a niche-y-sounding thing, though. It sounds like it once might've been a "Meeting Across the River" song on an album buoyed by three or four giant, popular songs on an album 50/40/30 years ago. Anyway, I'm going to be interested to hear if "I'm on My Journey Home" is Sam Amidon's common sound or if it's an outlier for him.