video reviews: 'after the fire' & 'the wanting' by cody jinks

Well this was... mildly disappointing? I wanted to be more over the moon for both of these albums, but I did see it coming, tbh.

Next up, what looks to be a rough Billboard BREAKDOWN and then clipping. - stay tuned!

album reviews: 'after the fire' & 'the wanting' by cody jinks

So I've gone back and forth so often on whether it's a good idea for artists to release more than one album a year, especially in relative close proximity. And normally the conclusion I've reached is, 'well, if they sound wildly different or they're aiming to do different things, then why the hell not'... but that let's be real, in today's streaming economy that is rarely the case so much as saturating the market, and even then it can be a dicey proposition.

And yeah, you can already tell that was my biggest concern going into these new albums from Cody Jinks, dropped a week apart and while had said that there were some incidental shifts in sound between the first and the second, I was still going in with the thought, 'if both discs aren't great, you probably could have just trimmed the fat and put out one of the best albums of your career'. And again, this is coming from a Cody Jinks fan who really loves Less Wise and 30 and really has come to love I'm Not The Devil as the melodic focus has only stuck with me more since 2016... but who also knew that Lifers felt more like a misstep with every listen, especially on production, and if those kinks hadn't been ironed out, throwing two albums of material could be a really big risk, especially as he's still independent and would be relying most on word-of-mouth and organic groundswell instead of label promotion. But hey, how did After The Fire and The Wanting turn out?

video review: 'lifers' by cody jinks

Hmm, a little surprised there hasn't been much of a backlash to this one yet... eh, I guess we'll see how it ages.

Next up... well, I don't have a ton to say, but I might as well talk about Halestorm. Stay tuned!

album review: 'lifers' by cody jinks

I'm not going to claim to be ahead of the curve when it came to covering Cody Jinks in 2016. I was aware of his name and a few of his projects, especially his excellent Less Wise, but when I was going into I'm Not The Devil right before I took off for vacation, I was expecting a pretty damn solid Texas country record and that's effectively what I got...

And then it seemed like the floodgates burst open, and Cody Jinks' name started getting passed around a fair bit more beyond just the indie country and Texas country circuits, and I can tell you right now it didn't have much to do with me. No, if there was an unsung strength of I'm Not The Devil it was how Jinks leveraged the thickness and dramatic heft of his sound with an approach to melodic hooks that honestly reminded a bit of Garth Brooks in terms of composition. I might gravitate to the rougher textures of his earlier projects like Less Wise and 30, but I'm Not The Devil balanced that with some of his best ever hooks, and that got people to take serious notice - he moved a surprising amount of units, and given how much he's risen it's hard not to think he's on the cusp of a serious grassroots breakthrough to rival most of the indie scene right now. So you can bet I was eagerly anticipating his follow-up this year Lifers, which critical buzz did not place as his best work, but still great all the same. Okay, still cautiously optimistic, how did it turn out?

video review: 'i'm not the devil' by cody jinks

I'm still kind of on the fence about whether this is a truly great record or not. I get the feeling certain tracks will really give it some longevity, but it'll be interesting to see how long it sticks around. For the mean time, pretty damn great, I liked it!

Next up... well, I'm posting this from Madrid's airport... let's see if I can get something filmed here. A little shorter, a little more... let's call it succinct, shall we? Stay tuned!

album review: 'i'm not the devil' by cody jinks

I said a few days ago that women in country music really are having a great year, but let's get brutally honest here: if you look outside most of the mainstream, country as a whole really is having a great year, and there are definitely promising signs that the radio is primed for a shift. And what I find bizarre is how little it's being covered outside of certain critical outlets dedicated to country - sure, this year we've seen a few more critics here on YouTube who are dipping their toes into the genre, but go over to certain indie-leaning outlets and they always seem a tad tentative to even touch the genre. Is it a fear of not looking cool, or do they just not know where to start? Because if it's the latter... well, I definitely get that, it's hard to break into any unfamiliar genre, but here's where you're mostly in luck: if you're looking for the two hotbeds of country quality right now, it's the acts affiliated with Dave Cobb and the Texas country scene.

And while my appreciation for Dave Cobb's stellar production is starting to be well-known on this channel, it's been a while since I've given the rough-edged red dirt honky tonk sound out of Texas some appreciation, one of the few scenes where regional radio has survived and cultivated a distinctive sound. Sure, if you go back through my top records of any given year, you'll find plenty of Texas names like Jason Eady, James McMurtry, Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen, and Kacey Musgraves, so let's add another name to that list: Cody Jinks. He actually got his start in thrash metal before cutting towards country and broke onto the scene with the excellent Less Wise in 2010. He then followed it with the slightly more experimental and melancholic 30 in 2012, and it seem liked everything was on path. And hell, he dropped a record called Adobe Sessions in the middle of summer last year... which for some reason, I didn't cover, even despite being a pretty damn good listen - a little smoother than his last two outside of a few darker exceptions like 'Loud And Heavy', but still solid. Well, here's as good of a time as any to make up for some lost time, so on the back of some promising critical acclaim, I dug into I'm Not The Devil - how was it?